beams of Majesty and its face displaying a most beautiful lustre and its whole substance shedding forth from every part a dazling glory round about it and this I conceive is that which he himself calls his own glory Luke 9.26 When he i. e. the Son of man shall come in his own glory that is the glory of that illustrious heavenly Body wherein he is now arrayed besides which bright and luminous Robe in which like a meridian Sun he shall visibly shine over all the World the aforecited Text tells us that he shall also come in the glory of his Father by which I conceive is meant that which the Hebrews call the Shechinah and the Scripture the glory of the Lord viz. a body of bright shining fire in which the Lord was especially present and with which as the Psalmist expresseth it he covered himself as with a Garment Psalm 104.2 for in 2 Thess. 1.8 we are told that he shall be revealed from heaven with flaming fire and so he descended on the Mount in fire Exod. 19.18 and that fire is called the Glory of the Lord Exod. 24.17 That fire therefore in which our Saviour shall be revealed from Heaven seems to be of the same nature with that fiery Shechinah or visible glory of the Lord in which he descended on Mount Sinai though doubtless it will be far more glorious as being designed to adorn a far more glorious solemnity And this Glory being added to the natural brightness and splendor of his glorified Body will cause him to outshine the Sun and drown all the lights of heaven in the conquering brightness of his appearance So that when he comes forth from his aetherial Palace and appears upon the Eastern heaven that immense Sphere of visible glory which will then surround him will in the twinkling of an eye spread and diffuse it self over all the Creation and cause both the Heavens and the Earth to glitter like a flaming fire III. Thirdly We will consider the Carriage on which he is to come which as the Scripture tells us shall be a Cloud so Acts 1.11 the Angels tell his Disciples who stood gazing after him as he was ascending into Heaven the same Iesus which is taken from you into Heaven shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into Heaven Now if you would know how that was the 9th Verse will inform you where it 's said that he was taken up and a Cloud received him out of sight and therefore as he ascended into Heaven on a Cloud so in like manner he shall from thence descend upon a Cloud also and accordingly our Saviour himself declares that we shall see the Son of man coming on the Clouds of Heaven in power and great glory Mat. 24.30 So also Mat. 26.64 Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of Power and coming in the Clouds of Heaven and in this very manner do the Iews expect the coming of their Messias as appears by that gloss of one of their ancient Masters on Dan. 7.10 si meruerint Iudaei veniet in nubibus Coeli which Raimund Pug. fid thus explains If ever the Jews deserve that the Messias should come he shall come gloriously according to the Prophet Daniel that is in the Clouds of Heaven And then he tells us farther ideo moderni Iudaei dicunt Messiam non venisse quia non viderunt eum venire in nubibus coeli therefore do the modern Jews say that the Messias is not yet come because they never saw him coming in the clouds of Heaven and it seems very probable that the great offence which the high Priest took at our Saviours saying that they should hereafter see him coming in the clouds of Heaven Mat. 26.64 65. was this that it was a tradition among them that the Messias should so come and that therefore he look'd upon that saying of our Saviour as a blasphemous pretence to his being the Messias as much as if he should have said though I have done enough already to convince you that I am the Messias yet you shall hereafter see that very sign of my being the Messias upon which you so much depend and without which you will not believe viz. my coming in the clouds of Heaven which therefore I am apt to think is the sign of the Son of man in Heaven of which our Saviour speaks Mat. 24.30 For so not only the Iews do Character their Messias but also the Heathen their Gods cloathed in a Cloud Thus Homer Iliad lib. 5. represents God coming to Diomedes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with his shoulders wrap'd in a Cloud and so also Virgil represents Iupiter coming to assist Aeneas Aen. 7 Radiis ardentem lucis auro ipse manu quatiens ostendit ab aethere nubem i. e. shewing him a Cloud from Heaven flaming with rays of light and Gold. So that to appear in Clouds it seems was looked upon both by Iews and Gentiles as a divine sign and Character and accordingly this sign was given by our Saviour to the Iews in that glorious representation of a Captain with his Legions issuing out of the Clouds a little before the destruction of Ierusalem recorded at large both in Iosephus and Tacitus and will hereafter be given to the whole World in a far more glorious manner at the opening of the day of Iudgment for then as the Psalmist expresses it he will make the Clouds his Chariots and ride down from the Heavens on them in a triumphal procession shining with unspeakable Glory and Majesty So that as when he ascended a bright and Radiant Cloud was prepared to receive and carry him up to the Seat of the blessed so when he descends there will be a vast sheet of condensed aethâ—r in the form of a radiant Cloud and such it 's probable was that on which he ascended prepared to receive him and to waft him down from above to the place appointed for the general Asâ—izes and this very Cloud or bright aetherial substance on which he shall come will perhaps be that Throne of Glory in Matth. 25.31 on which he shall sit whilest he is administring judgment to the World for this substance being not only naturally luminous but also accidentally illuminated from the Sun of Righteousness whom it bears will to be sure be sufficiently Glorious to deserve the name of A Throne of Glory IV. Fourthly We will consider the Retinue and Equipage with which he shall come which as the Scripture tells us will consist of innumerable myriads of Saints and Angels for immediately upon the notice that he is going down to solemnize the general Judgment all those blessed spirits of just men made perfect whom he hath redeemed and glorified from the beginning of the World shall forsake their mansions of glory to attend him in his progress for so Enoch prophesied of old behold the Lord comes with ten thousand of his Saints to execute judgment on the ungodly Jude
do any way fall short of it instead of being our kind and merciful Advocate our Mediator will become our implacable Judge and doom us to a place of dismal torment where we shall live with everlasting horrour and despair so that now we can no longer persevere in our impenitence without trampling at the same time on the highest encouragements and charging headlong through the most amazing danger IV. That as he acts for and in the behalf of God and Men so he partakes of the natures of both For that this high and important Office might be the more effectually executed and performed the eternal Father thought meet to place it in the hands of his own eternal Son the Son of his natural Generation to whom he communicated from all eternity his own Divine Essence and Nature and whom in due time he appointed to assume the Humane Nature into a personal union with his Divinity that so being God-man in one person he might be the better fitted and accomplished to Mediate between God and Men. For in Mediating Authoritatively for God with us he was to perform the Office of a divine King to rule and Govern us as God's Vicegerent and either reduce us under his Authority or chastise us for our Rebellion against him which is a Sphere so vast and so sublime as needs no less than some divine Intelligence to inform and actuate it For to wield the Divine Scepter and Government is a Province that requires a Divine Knowledge and Power for the souls and hearts of men are the principal Seat and Subject of the divine Government and therefore it is very requisite that he who is intrusted with the administration of it should have a through and perfect inspection of all our most secret Thoughts and Intentions and Purposes and Resolutions otherwise how is it possible he should take cognizance of them so as to command and over-rule and reward and punish them But to know the hearts of men is in Scripture always appropriated to the divine Omniscience so 1 Kings 8 3â— Thou even thou only knowest the hearts of the Children of men and if only God's all-searching Eye can penetrate into the hearts of men who but a God can Rule and Govern them And accordingly our Saviour upon whose shoulders this inward and spiritual Government rests challenges to himself this divine Prerogative which is so necessary a qualification for it Rev. 2.23 And all the Churches shall know saith he that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts and will give to every one of you according to his works Nor is it less requisite to qualifie him for this spiritual Empire that he should be Almighty than that he should be Omniscient for to enable him to rule the hearts and souls of men it is necessary that he should have the Command and Disposal of all those outward Events and Accidents in which they are any way concerned since it is by these in a great measure that their hearts are swayed their affections formed their intentions and resolutions squared and regulated and in a word their good and evil actions rewarded and punished in this World and to wield and manage moderate and dispose such infinite numbers of Events as concern such infinite numbers of Men so vastly distant from one another in place condition and temper requires a power that can do whatsoever it pleases both in Heaven and Earth which the Psalmist appropriates to the divine Power as its peculiar Prerogative Psal. 135.6 7. and if it be only a divine power that can manage and dispose all the affairs of all men what can be more requisite than that he who rules and governs them should communicate of the divine Omnipotence And accordingly our Saviour upon whom this Government is devolved assures his Disciples that all power was communicated to him both in Heaven and Earth Matt. 28.18 which being the Prerogative of the divine Power seems impossible to have been communicated to any but a divine Person And therefore the Prophet Isaiah speaking of the Government of Christ tells us that his name should be called Wonderful Counsellour the mighty God Isa. 9.6 where by Counsellour and mighty God he seems to design his infinite Knowledge and Power whereby he should be qualified for this his divine Government for so Mighty God doth always in the Scripture-phrase signifie Almighty God so in Deut. 7.21 Psal. 50.1 Ier. 32.18 Hab. 1.12 and elsewhere By all which it is evident that to Mediate Authoritatively for God with men is a Province so sublime as that it requires no less than divine perfections in the Person that undertakes and manages it and consequently that it is requisite he should be God. Nor is it less requisite to render his Government more awful and Majestick For though the condition of the Person alters not the nature of the Authority he is vested with yet in the estimation of men the same Authority is more or less venerable according as the quality and condition of â—he Persons cloathed with it is more or less considerable Since therefore the quality of the Person doth always cast a Cloud or Lustre on the Office it was very requisite that he who was Authorized to Mediate for God with men which is the highest Office under God the Father should be a Person of the highest Rank and Dignity next to God the Father himself and consequently that he should be God the Son and hence the Author to the Hebrews Chap. 1. to render his Authority moâ—e awful takes a great deal of pains to imblazon the dignity of his Person in which he gives him such Stiles and Characters as cannot without extreme force be applied to any but a Person divine he stiles him The brightness of his Father's Glory and the express Image of his Person the Founder of the Earth and the Maker of the Heavens and the Vpholder of all things by the word of his power Vers. 3.10 he tells us that he was set far above the Angels and that the Father had ordered all his Angels to worship him declaring him to be God in these terms Thy Throne O God is for ever and ever and then he concludes all with this application Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard of him Chap. 2. v. 1. which shews that in the Apostle's sense to Mediate for God is a station so sublime that it was very fit it should be supplied as it was with a Person of the highest Dignity that so his Person might reflect a Majesty on his Office and render it more awful and venerable in the World. And as to accomplish him for this high Office of Mediating for God with Men it was most fit he should be God so it was no less requisite he should be Man. For Man being naturally a sensitive as well as a rational Creature in this degenerate state of his nature wherein his sensitive part is predominant there are
hence we are said to have boldness to enter into the Holy of Holies that is to draw near by Prayer to God by the Bloud of Iesus by a new and living way which he hath consecrated for us through the vail that is to say his flesh Heb. 10.19 20. And our Saviour himself assures us that whatsoever we shall ask in his name he will do it and again he repeats it If ye shall ask any thing in my name I will do it John 14.13 14. that is he will procure it for us by joyning his Intercessions with our Prayers for so ver 16. he explains himself I will pray the Father II. The other intent and purpose of his making this Address or Intercession for us to the Father is to obtain of him Power and Authority to bestow on us all those graces and favours which in consideration of his Sacrifice God hath promised us It is not to move the Father to bestow on us the blessings of the New Covenant immediately with his own hand that our Saviour intercedes but to impower himself as Mediator between the Father and us to bestow them upon us according to the terms and conditions upon which they are proposed to us For though it is most certainly true that every good and perfect gift comes down from above even from the Father of Lights yet it is as certain that they come not down to us from the Father immediately but are all derived to us through the hands of the Son who by his continual Intercession obtains continual power and authority of the Father to derive and confer on us all those heavenly gifts So that as the High Priest when he had presented the bloud of the Sacrifice in the Holy of Holies was Authorized by God to bless the people vide 1 Chron. 23.13 even so our blessed Saviour by presenting his meritorious Sacrifice in Heaven and in the vertue thereof interceding for us with the Father is continually authorized by him effectually to bless us i. e. to confer on us the blessings of the New Covenant upon the terms and conditions that they are therein proposed For this power he obtains of God by his perpetual Intercession and hence he is said to be able to save all those to the utmost that come unto God by him seeing he ever lives to make intercession for us Heb. 7.25 where his power or ability to save us to the utmost i. e. to confer on us all the blessings of the New Covenant is expresly attributed to his ever living to make intercession for us which is a plain Argument that the intent of his Intercession is to move God to authorize him to save us seeing that in answer to his Intercession he is continually impowered and authorized thereunto For it is to be considered that this power and authority and the exercise of it appertains to his Kingly Office which he first arrived to and still continues in by vertue of his Intercession and indeed herein consists the Royalty of his Priesthood in that by interceding for us as Priest in the vertue of his Sacrifice and continuing to do so he first obtained and still continues vested with Kingly Power and Authority to bestow on us those heavenly blessings he intercedes for and it is to this purpose that he intercedes not that the Father would bestow them on us immediately but that he would put and continue it in his power to bestow them as Mediator between the Father and us so that he acquired and holds his Royalty by his Priesthood and that Kingly Power by which he gives us the blessings of the New Covenant God gave and continues to him by way of answer and return to his Priestly Intercession And hence he is said upon his offering one sacrifice for sin for ever i. e. upon the perpetual Oblation of his Sacrifice in Heaven to have sate down on the right hand of God i. e. in the Throne of his Kingly Power and Authority Heb. 10.12 and accordingly Eph. 4.8 we are told that upon his ascending up on high i. e. to present his sacrificed body in heaven he led captivity captive and gave gifts unto men which necessarily implies that he had received power and authority from his Father to give them and so Psal. 68.18 whence these words are quoted expresses it He received gifts for men i. e. upon the presenting his Sacrifice as Priest he received of the Father those Gifts for men which by his Kingly power he afterwards distributed among them So that what he gives by his Kingly power he receives by his Priestly and both the gifts which he gives and the authority by which he gives them are the fruits and returns of that perpetual Intercession which he makes by his Sacrifice And that by his Intercession our Saviour hath acquired this Royal power of giving us the blessings of the New Covenant he himself doth plainly enough intimate for thus of the Spirit which is one of those great blessings he tells his Disciples It is expedient for you that I go away i. e. to Heaven to intercede for you for if I go not away the Comforter will not come i. e. he will not come but upon my Intercession but if I depart I will send him unto you namely by that Royal Authority which upon my Intercession I shall receive from the Father Ioh. 16.7 And accordingly St. Peter tells the Jews that Christ being exalted by the right hand of God and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost i. e. upon his Intercession in Heaven he hath shed forth this which ye now see and hear i. e. the miraculous vertues of the Holy Ghost Acts 2.33 And so for remission of sins he tells us that he hath the Keys of hell and death Rev. 1.18 i. e. power to bind or loose to pardon or condemn and lastly for eternal life he expresly tells the Church of Laodicea To him that overcomes will I grant to sit with me on my Throne even as I have overcome and am sate down with my Father on his Rev. 3.21 By all which it is abundantly evident that Christ hath a Royal power delegated to him from the Father upon his intercession to grant and bestow all the blessings of the New Covenant upon those that comply with its terms and conditions For so all the graces and favours of God are in Scripture said to be derived in by or through Jesus Christ for so Eph. 1.3 God the Father is said to bless us with all spiritual blessings in or through Christ and Rom. 6.23 Eternal life is said to be the gift of God through Iesus Christ our Lord and we are said to be heirs of God or inheritors of his blessings through Christ Gal. 4.7 which plainly implies that though it is from God the Father originally that all our mercies are derived yet it is through God the Son immediately that they are all derived to us and that whatsoever God
for our sakes or that God the Son will be unfaithful to the Father for our sakes both which suppositions are equally absurd and blasphemous Whilst therefore God proceeds with us in this established method of granting his mercy to us only through his Son and confining his Son to dispence it to us only upon the conditions of the New Covenant to flatter our selves with hopes of mercy while we continue impenitent is to presume both against reason and possibility IV. This way of God's communicating his Favours to us through the mediation of Christ is also most apt in it self to encourage us to approach him with Chearfulness and freedom For it is a natural effect of guilt to suggest to mens minds dreadful and anxious thoughts of God and whilst we are under such thoughts of him how is it possible for us to approach him immediately and without any Friend or Advocate to introduce and speak for us with any chearfulness or freedom For with what confidence can I address to an incensed and offended God purely upon my own fund or interest when I am conscious of a thousand times more evil in me to provoke him against me than of good to recommend me to his favour Unless therefore I am secured of some powerful friend in Heaven that is infinitely more acceptable to God than I can modestly hope to be and that will agitate for me and solicite my cause with all his power and interest my sense of the innumerable provocations I have given him to turn his back upon me must either render me quite desperate of success at the Throne of his grace or cause me to approach it with unspeakable horrour and confusion So that my intercourse with God must either be wholly interrupted or rendred very difficult and uneasie to me because my slavish dread of him must either chase me from his Altars or drag we to them with violence and reluctancy And hence it is that under the sense of our guilt we naturally fly to the Intercessions of others whom we believe to have more interest with God than our selves because we cannot modestly promise our selves a free admittance and access to him upon our own account Which probably was the Reason of the first institution of Demon-worship among the Heathens whose minds being stung with the sense of their own guilts they were not able to approach God without fearful despondence and anxiety whereupon they began to cast about as it is natural for guilty minds to do how they might procure some other Beings that were in great favour with God to interpose with him in their behalf and having learned by an universal Tradition that there was a sort of middle Beings called Angels or Demons between the Sovereign God and Men they began to address to these and to bribe them with Sacrifices and sacred honours to intercede with God in their behalf And hence Apuleius de Daemon Soc. calls these Demons Mediae potestates per quas desideria nostra merita ad Deos commeant inter terricolas coelicolasque vectores hinc precum inde donorum qui ultro citroque portant hinc petitiones inde suppetias seu quidam utrumque interpretes salutigeri i. e. They are middle powers by whom our desires and merits are presented to the Gods they go between Heaven and Earth and carry from hence the Prayers of men and from thence the Gifts of God from Earth they go with Petitions and from Heaven they return with Supplies or they are the Interpreters of both Worlds that do continually carry and report the mutual salutations of both to each other By which it is evident that they thought it very necessary in order to God's accepting their addresses that they should be presented and recommended to him by some better Beings than themselves their guilty minds it seems suggesting to them that it would be high presumption for such great offenders as themselves to approach the divine Majesty without being introduced and Patronized by some more pure and holy Beings And I am very apt to think that the great cause of that Spirit of bondage which possessed the ancient Iews and rendred them so diffident and tremulous in all their approaches to God was their want of an explicite knowledge of the Mediator For what dismal and melancholy expostulations do we frequently meet with in their addresses to God such as Wilt thou be angry for ever Hast thou forgotten to be gracious Wilt thou remember thy loving kindness no more Which plainly shews that their guilt suggested to them such frightful apprehensions of God as did very much cramp their hope and confidence in him And hence the Apostle opposes this Spirit of bondage in them to that Christian Spirit of Adoption by which we cry Abba Father i. e. by which we approach God with great freedom and assurance and go to him as Children to a kind and merciful Father Rom. 8.15 Now if you would know from whence this Christian freedom and assurance proceeds the Author to the Hebrews will inform you Heb. 10.21 22. Having therefore an High-Priest over the houshold of God i. e. to mediate and intercede for us let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith and Heb. 4.14 15 16 the Apostle urges our having a compassionate High-Priest in Heaven to intercede for us as an argument to encourage us to come boldly to the Throne of grace And indeed what greater encouragement can we have to draw nigh unto God with an humble confidence than this consideration that the highest Favourite he hath in Heaven or Earth is our Advocate and that he is not only infinitely concerned for us as being akin to us by nature and having a compassionate sense of our infirmities that he doth not only imploy in our behalf all the favour and interest he hath with God as he is the Son of his Essence and the Object of his delight but that he ever intercedes for us in the right and vertue of that Meritorious Sacrifice with which he bought and purchased all those heavenly blessings he intercedes for So that now all we have to do is to return to God by an unfeigned repentance which if we do he stands engaged to undertake our cause and what may we not expect from the Patronage of so great and powerful a Mediator For how great soever our past sins are his interest in Heaven is far greater how loud and clamorous soever our past Provocations are his Bloud and Wounds are far louder and how importunately soever our past guilts may imprecate the divine Vengeance upon us his Intercessions do far more importunately and prevalently deprecate it So that now we cannot reasonably doubt of a free admission to God in any case whatsoever wherein our Saviour will make use of his interest for us with God and therefore since in all cases he doth continually imploy his interest for us but only in that of our impenitence every Penitent
their visible profession of Christianity have actually submitted themselves to the Scepter of Christ have yet together with Christianity espoused the Interest of sundry Antichristian Principles in pursuance of which they have been as inveterate Enemies and Persecutors of the truth as it is in Iesus as any of the Heathen Kings or Emperors yet these also notwithstanding their male-administration are the Subjects and Ministers of our Saviour and it is by his Authority and Commission that they Reign and by his Omnipotent Providence that all their wicked designs and actions are over-ruled to gracious ends and purposes so that all the Sovereign Powers of the Earth are subjected by God to the Dominion of our Saviour and in their respective Kingdoms and Empires are only his Substitutes and Vicegerents for so we are told not only that all judgment is committed to him and that all power is committed to him in heaven and earth and that he is Heir of all things and hath power over all flesh but also that he is King of Kings and Lord of Lords the only Potentate the head of all Principality and Power and the Prince of all the Kings of the Earth vid. P. 810. and so the Fathers of the Council of Ariminum tell Constantius the Arrian Emperor that it was by Christs Donation that he held his Empire 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by him i. e. Christ thou art appointed to Reign over all the World upon which account Liberius advises him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do not fight against Christ who hath bestowed this Empire upon thee do not render him Impiety instead of Gratitude and to the same purpose Athanasius tells us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. that Christ having received the Throne hath translated it from Heathen to holy Christian Kings to return them back to the House of Iacob So that both from Scripture and the current Doctrine of the Primitive Church it is evident that all the Sovereign Powers upon Earth are subjected to our Saviour and are only the Ministers and Viceroys of his universal Kingdom But for the farther prosecution of this Argument I shall shew in the first place that by this their subjection to Christ they are not deprived of any natural Right of their Sovereignty and secondly that they are obliged by it to certain Ministries in the Kingdom of Christ. First That by their subjection they are not deprived of any natural Right of their Sovereignty for when our Saviour pronounced the Sentence Give unto Cesar the things that are Cesars he thereby renewed the Patent of Sovereign Powers and reinvested them in all the natural Rights of their Sovereignty which doubtless are included in the things that are Cesars for upon the Pharisees asking him that captious question Is it lawful to pay Tribute to Cesar He doth not answer yes it is lawful which yet had been a sufficient reply to their Question but calls for a Tribute Peny and having asked them whose Image and Superscription that was upon it and being answered Cesars he returns them an Answer much larger than their Question Give unto Cesar the things that are Cesars i. e. it is certain that you are obliged not only to pay Tribute to Cesar but also to render him whatever else is due to him by vertue of his Sovereign Power for Sovereign Power being immediatly founded on the Dominion of God hath from thence these two unalienable Rights derived to it to which all the essential Rights of Sovereignty are Reducible First to Command in all things as it judges most convenient for the publick good where God hath not Countermanded for the Power of Sovereigns descending from God can only be limited by God or themselves for if they are limitable by any other Power they are Subjects to that Power and so can no longer be Sovereigns and if they are limitable only by God or themselves then where they are not limited either by God or themselves they must necessarily have a right to command Secondly The other unalienable Right that is derived to them from God is to be accountable only to God for by deriving to them Sovereign Power God hath exalted them above all Powers but his own and therefore since no Power can be accountable but to a superiour Power and since Sovereigns have no Superiour Power but God it is to God only from whom they received their Power that they are accountable for the administration of it These therefore are the natural Rights of Sovereign Powers and these Rights remain intire and inviolate in them notwithstanding their subjection to the Mediatorial Scepter of our Saviour as I shall endeavour to shew in the particulars First Therefore by this their subjection to Christ they are not deprived of their natural Right of Commanding in all cases as they shall judge most convenient for the publick Good where God hath not countermanded them For the Christian Religion is so far from any way retrenching the power of Princes that it abundantly confirms and enforces it by requiring us to submit to every Ordinance of man for the Lords sake to be subject to the higher Powers and that not only for wrath but for conscience sake to submit to Principalities and Powers and to obey Magistrates to render Tribute to whom Tribute is due Custom to whom Custom Fear to whom Fear Honour to whom Honour i. e. to submit to all the lawful impositions of our Princes whether it be of Taxes or of any other matter whatsoever and in all the New Testament there is only one limitation made of our obedience which is a natural and eternal one and that is that we ought to obey God rather than Man that is when Mans Command and Gods do apparently clash and interfere with each other for in this case the Magistrate hath no Right to be obeyed because his Will is countermanded by a Superiour Authority by which Exception this general Rule is confirmed that in all cases whatsoever whether Temporal or Spiritual Civil or Ecclesiastical Sovereign Powers have an unalienable right to be obeyed For if their Right to be obeyed in the Kingdom of Christ extended only to Civil and Temporal causes their Authority would be very much lessened and Retrenched by their subjection to our Saviour since before their subjection to him it undoubtedly extended to all causes whatsoever because being Sovereign under God it could have no other bounds or limits but what God had set to it and therefore since before their subjection to Christ God had bounded their Authority by no other Law but that of Nature it must either be made appear that the Law of Nature did then limit their Authority only to Civil causes which I am sure is impossible or it will necessarily follow that it extended also to Spiritual and Ecclesiastical and if it did so then it must do so still unless it be made appear that Christianity hath retrenched and lessened it It is true Christ hath erected a standing form of
our faith cannot be sufficient to discharge us from its penalty unless it be such as includes in it repentance and sincere obedience In short the law of grace condemns us as well for impiety injustice and uncharitableness as for infidelity and therefore we cannot be acquitted by it upon forsaking our infidelity unless we also forsake our impiety c. and while we continue in any one wilful sin for which it condemns it is impossible that at the same time we should be acquitted and pardoned by it so that unless our faith be such as doth include in it a renuntiation of all wilful sin or which is the same thing repentance and sincere obedience we cannot be acquitted upon it by the Law of Grace And then if we consider the matter of our Pardon and Remission which is nothing but a releasing us from our obligation to punishment it will from thence also appear that that faith upon which we obtain our pardon must be such as works in us sincere repentance and obedience For the punishment to which we are obliged by the Law of grace consists in the loss of Heaven as well as in the positive Torments of Hell and therefore our pardon must include a release from both but to be released from our obligation of losing Heaven is the same thing as to have a right of enjoying it confer'd upon us so that the Faith upon which we are pardoned and forgiven is the Faith upon which we are intitled to Heaven as all agree includes in it repentance and sincere obedience For these two things are of undoubted certainty that every man shall go to Heaven that dies intitled to it and that no man shall go to Heaven that dieth in impenitence and wilful disobedience For it is our keeping the Commandments of God that gives us a right to the Tree of life Rev. 22.14 And our keeping Gods Commandments is that Holiness without which no man shall see God Heb. 12.14 And accordingly in Scripture the Remission of our sins is attributed to our repentance and obedience as well as to our faith so Acts 3.19 Repent ye therefore and be converted that your sins may be blotted out when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord. And in Eph. 1.7 If ye walk in the light as he is in the light you have communion with him and the blood of Christ cleanseth you from all sin So also Acts 10.34 35. God is no respecter of persons but in every Nation he that fearâ—th him and worketh righteousness is accepted of him From whence it is evident that when the Scripture makes mention of faith only in the matter of our Justification it is to be understood of faith in the greatest latitude as comprehending Repentance and sincere obedience for how can we be justified by faith only and yet be justified by obedience too unless our obedience be included in our faith and indeed the Scripture plainly declares that faith it self is not at all available with God unless it be accompanied with sincere obedience So Gal. 5.6 In Christ Iesus neither Circumcision availeth nor Uncircumcision but faith whick worketh by Love and what he means by faith working by love he tells us Gal. 6.16 Circumcision is nothing and Uncircumcision is nothing but the new Creature and what he means by the new Creature he also tells us 1 Cor. 7.19 Circumcision is nothing and Uncircumcision is nothing but keeping the Commandments of God so that the only thing which avails us with God is faith working by love Faith working by Love is the new Creature the new Creature is keeping the Commandments of God and in Iames 2.26 we are told that as the body without the spirit is dead so faith also is dead without works that is it is altogether ineffectual For so if you compare the 14. and 17. Verses of this Chapter you will find that those two phrases faith cannot save and faith is dead do both signifie the same thing Since therefore faith it self without obedience is unavailable when the Scripture makes mention of our being justified by faith it must necessarily be understood of faith comprehending Obedience And thus you see what God the Fathers part is in remitting our sins viz. that it consists in granting to us an universal act of pardon and Indemnity in consideration of our Saviours Sacrifice and upon Condition of our sincere Repentance and future obedience And this is the ground-work and foundation of all remission of sins without which our Saviour himself hath no right to pardon and forgive us for since the Law against which we have all sinned was peculiarly from God the Father as he is the fountain of Divinity and consequently the head of the divine Dominion it was he peculiarly that was the party offended and consequently it was he to whom our obligation to punishment was due and by whom alone it can be released and remitted and as the grant of Remission was wholly in his will and pleasure so was it also to accept the consideration and appoint the Conditions of it So that now as none can be pardoned but upon his Grant so neither can his grant be available to any but upon that consideration which he hath accepted viz. the precious sacrifice of his own Son and upon such conditions as he hath appointed viz. faith working in us sincere repentance and obedience and accordingly our Saviour in all that he doth in the part he acts in forgiving sins proceeds upon and according to this Grant of his Father for 't is in the right and upon the consideration and condition of this Grant that he forgives us nor can he forgive any by any other right than that which it gives him or upon any other consideration than that which it hath admitted or upon any other condition than that which it hath specified and determined And this brings me to the second Head I proposed which was to shew what it is that the Son doth in forgiving Sins In short therefore the part which our Saviour bears in it consider'd as King under God the Father is to make an actual and particular application of this general Grant of his Father to particular Sinners upon their faith and repentance For the Fathers grant is only a general promise that we shall be pardoned for Christs sake whenever we sincerely believe and repent but the actual pardoning us consists in the application of this general Promise to us in particular by which the general promise of pardon is converted into a particular sentence of pardon For the promise says thus Whosoever believes and repents shall be pardoned the particular application of the Promise says thus Thou doest believe and repent and therefore by vertue of that Promise I pardon and forgive thee And this is the proper part of our blessed Saviour who having first obtained this Promise of his Father by his sacrifice upon Earth and then still continuing to obtain of him by
word of my Patience I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation which shall come upon all the World to try them that dwell upon the Earth Rev. 3.10 By which it is plain that the power of protecting and defending his Subjects is inherent in Christ as an essential part of his Regal Authority and this power he continually exercises now he is is heaven for it was for this end among others that he promises to be with his Church to the end of the World Mat. 28.20 namely to guard and defend it by his Providence against the outragious attempts of its numerous enemies For it is for this end that the Father hath put all things in subjection under him and that he hath left nothing that is not put under him Heb. 2.7 8. that so having the Universal Government of all things in his hand he might by his over-ruling Providence render them all subservient to the interest of his Church For so Eph. 1.21 we are assured that the Father hath put all things under his feet and given him to be head over all things to his Church i. e. hath vested him with an universal power over all things that so he might order and direct them all to the interest and advantage of his Church And accordingly now he is in heaven the defence and preservation of his Church is the great business which he intends upon earth there he now sits looking down from his Throne with a watchful eye to observe all the motions and trace out all the dark designs of her enemies and from thence he stretches forth his Almighty hand to guard and defend her against them to repel or over-rule their malice to drive back their venemous Darts upon themselves or to temper their Poyson into Physick and extract a healing Balm out of the Stings of those Scorpions In which how careful and diligent he hath been is abundantly manifest from the glorious success for considering the vast opposition that hath been made against it even from its infancy how is it possible it could ever have subsisted had it not been guarded by an invisible hand No sooner did this light upon a Hill appear in the World but all the four Winds immediately conspired to blow it out yet which is miraculous to consider still the harder they blew the brighter it flamed and though for the first 300 years it was the main and almost constant exercise of the Power and Policy the Wit and Cruelty both of Devils and Men to suppress and ruine it yet still it thrived and encreased under the most powerful means of its extirpation It conquered by suffering gathered strength by bleeding and like a head-strong Floud still the more it was checked the more it swelled and over-flowed till at length it filled the Earth as the Waters cover the Sea. Which if well considered is an amazing instance of the vigilant and powerful Providence of our Saviour which hath not only preserved this burning Bush from consuming but made it spring and flourish in the flames And though since those Primitive Persecutions he hath many times for wise and gracious ends let loose the Wolves upon his Flock and permitted them to worry and sometimes almost to devour it yet still he hath kept a strict and steady Reign upon their Power and Malice and when they have served his ends hath check'd and stop'd them in their savage career and when they have thought the trembling Prey their own hath stretched out his own Almighty Arm and snatched it from their devouring jaws So that while they are clubbing all their Power and Policy against it he that sits in the Heavens laughs them to scorn the Lord hath them in derision and doth contemn their impotent malice which he can manage as he pleases he can either prevent the mischievous effects of it or cause them to recoile upon themselves or make those very persecutions with which they design to destroy his Church the means of its enlargement and propagation and what in his own infallible Wisdom he thinks best that he hath always done and will always do for his Church and People For many a time have they afflicted me from my youth may Israel or the Church of Christ now say many a time have they afflicted me from my youth yet have they not prevailed against me the Plowers have plowed upon my back they have made long furrows but the Lord is righteous he hath cut asunder the Cords of the wicked and in his own due time will confound and turn back those that hate Sion And as he exerciseth a most vigilant Providence over his Church in general so doth he also over all the faithful and obedient Subjects of it whose interest is as dear and precious to him as his own bloud for they are not only the purchase of his bloud but also the Trophies and Conquests of his Spirit which makes them his by a double Propriety and more peculiarly entitles them to his care and protection they are living Members of his own Body and as such he feels their pains by a most tender sympathy and therefore his Providence is as much concerned for their defence as his Eye-lid is to defend the Apple of his own Eye Zech. 2.8 and therefore though he exercises a merciful Providence over all men yet these he incloses out of the Common of the World and fences about with a peculiar care These are his Iewels and he keeps them in his Treasury under the strongest and most inviolable security He is always watching over them for good and it is his peculiar and continual concern to protect and defend them to keep off Temptation from their Souls and Calamities from their Bodies and so to over-rule and direct the course of things as that whatever befals them may concenter in their happiness For though he many times corrects them with his own hand and permits them to be oppressed and afflicted by others yet still he doth it with a most gracious intention either to cure or prevent some disease in their minds or to excite and exercise their graces or to wean them from the love of this vain World and discipline them for a blessed Eternity and whatsoever evils happen to them in the course of his Providence still he takes care to extract good out of them and so to contrive and order the whole Scene of Affairs as that in the issue all things may still work together for good to them that love God and are called according to his purpose Rom. 8.28 IV. And lastly Another of those Regal Acts which our Saviour hath always and doth always continue to perform in his blessing and rewarding all his faithful Subjects in the Life to come for this as he himself declares he hath power to do so Rev. 2.7 To him that overcomes will I give to eat of the tree of life which is in the midst of the Paradise of God i. e. I will admit him in a
the Tribulation of those days in that prodigious irruption of Vesuvius in Campania the woful effects whereof were felt not only in Rome and Italy but in a great part of Africa in Syria Constantinople and in all the adjoyning Countries Vid. Dion Cass. lib. 66.68 but it is apparent that our Saviour here prophesies of the Judgment of Ierusalem as it was a Type and Representation of the general Judgment so that though his Prophesie respects Ierusalems doom immediately yet through this it looks forward to the final Doom of the World and therefore as in foretelling the former he prefigures the later so in foretelling the foregoing signs of the former he prefigures the foregoing signs of the later And since he here intended the signs of Ierusalems dooms-day only for Types and Figures of those signs which shall forerun the dooms-day of the World and seeing that Types have always less in them than are in the things which they typifie and prefigure there is no doubt but those signs which shall forerun the last judgment will be much more eminent and illustrious than those of Ierusalems judgment which were intended only to Typifie and prefigure them and accordingly St. Ierom tells us of an ancient Tradition of the Jewish Doctors to which our Saviour in this Prediction seems plainly to refer that for fifteen days together before the general judgment there shall be transacted upon the Stage of Nature a continued Scene of fearful Signs and Wonders the Sea shall swell to a prodigious height and make a fearful noise with its tumbling Waves the Heavens shall crack day and night with loud and roaring Thunders the Earth shall groan under hideous Convulsions and be shaken with quotidian Earthquakes the Moon shall shed forth purple streams of discoloured light the Sun shall be cloathed in a dismal darkness and the Stars shall shrink in their light and twinkle like expiring Candles in the Socket the Air shall blaze with Portentous Comets and the whole frame of nature like a funeral Room shall be all hung round with mourning and with Ensigns of horrour and when these fatal symptoms appear upon the face of the Universe then shall the Inhabitants of the earth mourn and the Sinners in Sion shall be horribly afraid being loudly forewarned by these astonishing Portents of the near approach of their everlasting Doom Having thus briefly shewn what shall be the Signs of our Saviours coming to Judgment I proceed to the III. The Third general which was to shew the manner and circumstances of his coming and here we will first consider the place from whence he is to come Secondly the State in which he is to come Thirdly the Carriage on which he is to come Fourthly the Equipage with which he is to come Fifthly the place to which he is to come I. The place from which he is to come which is no other than the Highest Heavens where he now lives and reigns in his exalted and glorified Humanity for him must the Heavens receive till the time of the Restitution of all things Acts 3.21 in that bright Region of eternal day that Kingdom of Angels and of spirits of just men made perfect he is to reign in Person till the last and terrible day and from thence he is to begin his Circuit when he comes to keep his general Assizes upon earth for he is to be revealed from Heaven with his mighty Angels 2 Thess. 1.7 and to descend from Heaven with a shout 1 Thess. 4.16 so that in the close of those dreadful Alarms which he will give the World by the preceding signs of his coming he will arise from his imperial Seat at his Fathers right hand and descend in person from those high habitations of inaccessible light and every eye shall see him as he comes shooting like a Star from his Orb and the sight of him shall affect the whole World with unspeakable joy or consternation the righteous when they see him shall lift up their heads and rejoyce because they know he is their Friend and brings the day of their redemption with him they shall congratulate his Arrival and welcome him from Heaven with Songs of Triumph and deliverance but as for the wicked they shall shreik and lament at the sight of him as being conscious to themselves that by a thousand provocations they have render'd him their implacable Enemy the sense of which will cause them to exclaim in the bitter Agonies of their souls O yonder comes he whose mercies we have spurned whose Authority we have despised whose Laws we have trampled on and all the methods of whose love we have utterly baffled and defeated and now forlorn and miserable that we are how shall we abide his appearance or whither shall we flee from his presence O that some Rock would fall upon us or that some Mountain would be so pitiful as to swallow us up and bury us from his sight for ever But wo are we within these few moments the Rocks and Mountains will be gone the Heavens and Earth will melt away and nothing will be left besides our selves for his fiery indignation to prey on Thus shall the sight of the son of man descending from his Throne in the Heavens to judge the World inspire his friends with unspeakable joy and strike his enemies with terrour and confusion II. We will consider the State in which he is to come which shall be far different from that in which he came sixteen hundred years ago Then he came in an humble and despicable condition clouded with poverty and grief and oppressed with all the innocent infirmities of humane nature but at the last day he shall come in his glorified state cloathed in that Celestial Body which he now wears at the Right hand of God. For so Acts 1.11 the Angel assures his Disciples This same Iesus which is taken up from you into heaven shall so come in like manner as you have seen him go into heaven that is he shall return to Judgment in that self-same glorified Body wherein you now see him ascend and what a glorious one that is we may partly learn from that majestick description of it Rev. 1.13 14 15 16. In the midst of the seven Candlesticks was one like the Son of man his head and his hair were white as wool as white as snow his eyes were as a flame of fire and his countenance was as the Sun shining in its strength And partly from his transfiguration on the Mount which was but a short essay and specimen of his Glorification for it 's said that his face did shine as the Sun and that his Raiment was white as the light white with those beams of Glory which from his transfigured Body shone through all his Apparel Mat. 17.2 When therefore he descends from Heaven to judg the World it shall be with this glorified Body this Body of pure and immaculate splendor with its hair shining like threds of light its eyes sparkling with
14.15 and that by these ten Thousand he means the whole body of the Church Triumphant is evident by that passage of S. Paul 1 Thess. 3.13 where he prays that they might be established in their Christian course till the coming of the Lord Iesus with all his Saints and indeed since they are all to re-assume their bodies and to be made partakers of the Glorious Resurrection it 's necessary that they should all come down along with him and return to this earth where the old matter of those bodies lies wherein they are to be reinvested and to this illustrious retinue of glorified Saints shall be joyned the heavenly hosts of the holy Angels for so Christ himself tells us that he shall come in his own glory and in his Fathers and of his holy Angels Luke 9.26 and that he shall come in his glory and all his holy Angels with him Mat. 25.31 And S. Paul tells us that he shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty Angels 2 Thess. 1.2 And as the Angels shall come down along with him so in all probability they shall come in a glorious appearance cloathed in bright aetherial bodies in which to adorn the triumphs of that glorious day they shall be conspicuous to all the Inhabitants of the Earth Neither shall their coming with him be only for shew and pomp but the Scripture plainly tells us that they shall minister to him in that great transaction For at his issuing forth from the heaven of heavens these mighty hosts of Angels shall march before him with the Archangel in the head of them who with a mighty voice or sound like that of a Trumpet shall send forth an awakening summons to all the Inhabitants of the grave to come forth and appear before the Judgment Seat at which Tremendous voice which with an all-enlivening power shall be reverberated through all the vault of heaven and penetrate the most secret repositories of the Earth the dead shall rise and the living shall be changed and transfigured and all shall be set before the dread Tribunal to undergo their Trial and receive their doom For so 1 Thess. 4.16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout with the voice of the Archangel and the trump of God and the dead in Christ shall rise first and in 1 Cor. 15.52 the resurrection of the dead is made the consequence of the sounding this Trumpet for the Trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible And so also Mat. 24.31 our Saviour tells us that at his coming on the clouds of Heaven he will send his Angels with a great sound of a Trumpet and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds from whence it is evident that the Angels then minister to him to raising the dead and assembling them to Judgment and hence that which is called the voice of the Archangel in the above cited 1 Thess. 4.10 is elsewhere called the voice of the Son of God John 5.25 because as it will be animated by his power so it will be pronounced by his authority and as they shall minister to him in raising the dead to be judged so shall they also in executing his Sentence and Judgment for so Mat. 13.41 42. He tells us the Son of man shall send forth his Angels and they shall gather out of his Kingdom all things that offend and them which do iniquity and shall cast them into a furnace of fire there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth From whence it 's evident that when he hath pronounced sentence on the workers of iniquity he will by the ministry of his Angels chase them into that everlasting fire whereunto he hath doomed and devoted them Thus when he comes to judg the World all his holy Angels shall come with him and that not only to contribute to the glory and splendor of his Circuit but also to minister to him in his Judgment so that his retinue shall consist of all the Inhabitants of heaven who shall all come forth together with him and bear him company in this his Triumphant progress through the skies by which we may easily imagine what an amazing spectacle his coming down from heaven will be to the Inhabitants of the earth when they shall see him descend from his Imperial Seat far above the starry Skies with all the Train-bands of heaven about him the Captain of the Angelical Host in the front of innumerable Angels marching before him and with his mighty Trump ringing a peal of Thunder through the Universe and with ten thousand thousands of the Spirits of just men made perfect following after him with Crowns of glory on their heads and Songs and Halelujahs in their moâ—ths O blessed Jesuâ— how will this glorious and dreadful sight confound thy Enemies and ravish thy Friends make those that hate thee tremble and gnash their teeth and those that love thee lift up their heads and shout for joy V. And lastly We will consider the place to which he is to come concerning which all that is certain from Scripture is this that when he comes down from Heâ—ven he will fix his Throne or Judgment Seat in the Air at such a convenient distance from the Earth as shall render him visible to all its Inhabitants For so 1 Thess. 4.17 it is said of the righteous that after their being raised or changed they shall be caught up in the Clouds to meet the Lord in the Air which is a plain argument that the Lord will sit in judgment on them in the Air since thither they will be caught up to him after they are raised and judged Thus in that very Air which is now the seat of the Devils Empire shall Christ fix his Throne to manifest to all the World the consummation of his Victory over the Powers of darkness There shall he sit in Majesty and Glory where now the Devil and his Angels reign and in the publick view of the World shall even in their own dominion spoil those Hellish Principalities and Powers and having chained them at his Chariot Wheels make a shew of them openly triumphing over them there where they now domineer and tyrannize over this wretched World shall he set his foot upon their necks and from thence shall he tread them down into everlasting darkness and despair Thus that he may expose himself to the more publick view and the Devil to the more publick shame and confusion he will choose to keep his general Assizes in the Air. Being therefore arrived into the airy Regions after a long and glorious progress from the highest heaven there he shall sit down upon the Throne of his glory as some think over against Mount Olivet the place from whence he ascended whither all People Nations and Languages shall be gathered before him to receive their everlasting Doom And now let us imagine with our selves in what a glorious and tremendous Majesty he will appear to the World from his
Reward Had he continued to govern us by himself immediately we had wanted one of the most encouraging instances of his immense bounty in rewarding obedience that ever was given to the World and that is his advancement of our Saviour to that Mediatorial Royalty which he now exercises at the right hand of the Majesty on high for had our Saviour been God only he had been incapable of Reward his happiness as such being so immense as that it can admit of no addition but being Man as well as God he is thereby capacitated for all that vast reward which the possession of his Mediatorial Kingdom together with an everlasting Heaven includes and all this reward is the product of that perfect and profound obedience which he render'd to his Father whilst he was in this World. So that now in him by whom God hath promised to reward our obedience we have an illustrious instance of Gods liberality in rewarding Obedience by his happy fate we may be fully assured that we shall not serve God for nought but that the reward of our obedience shall ten thousand-fold exceed the labour and difficulty of it for he is a man as well as we though he be hypostatically united to God and this man for some few years faithful service upon Earth for revealing Gods Will to men and exhibiting a perfect example of obedience to it for exposing himself to some temporal Calamities and finally for offering up himself a spotless Victim for the sins of the World is now advanced to the utmost height of bliss and glory that it is possible for a Creature to arrive to he is set far above all principality and power he is served and Adored as the only Potentate under God the Father throughout all the Heavenly World he is worship'd and Celebrated by Cherubin and Seraphin by Archangels and Angels he is extol'd in the Songs of the Patriarchs and Prophets the Apostles and Evangelists the Confessors and Martyrs and his Name is resounded with everlasting praises and thanksgivings throughout all the vast Choire of the spirits of just men made perfect and in a word he hath all Power given him both in Heaven and Earth and to his all-commanding Will the whole Creation is subjected In this ever blessed King therefore by whom God now rules us we have for the assurance of our hope of a future reward the most stupendous instance of it that ever was given to the World. And indeed since the great end of Christs Mediation was to reduce men to their duty by giving them a sure and certain hope of the remission of their sins at present and of a glorious reward hereafter it was highly condecent that it self should be an Example of its own design and that the glorious part of it should be made the reward of the more painful and difficult that so having in the Mediation it self a signal instance of Gods immence liberality in rewarding obedience we might thereupon the more confidently expect that glorious recompence of Reward which God hath promised to those that obey him and be thereby the more vigorously excited to our duty And hence our Saviour proposes himself to us as an instance of the reward of obedience To him that overcomes will I grant to sit with me on my Throne even as I have overcome and am sat down with my Father on his Throne As much as if he should have said that upon your overcoming the difficulties of your duty you shall receive a most glorious reward you need not at all doubt having so illustrious an Example of it in my self who having conquer'd the difficult parts of my Mediation which was to teach you as a Prophet and to expiate for you as a Priest am now crowned with the reward of transacting the glorious part of it i. e. sitting with my Father on his Throne and there reigning with him in unspeakable Glory and Beatitude and accordingly the Apostle bids us Look unto Iesus the Author and finisher of our faith who for the joy that was set before him indured the Cross despised the shame and is sate down on the right hand of the Throne of the Majesty on high Heb. 12.2 SECT XIII That Iesus Christ is this Mediator of whom we have been treating HAving in the foregoing Sections explain'd at large the nature and Offices of the Mediator between God and men all that now remains is to prove that Jesus Christ the Author of our Religion is the Person whom God hath ordained and constituted this Mediator between him and us And that he is so he himself openly averr'd whilst he was upon Earth and afterwards proclaimed it to the World by the Mouth of his Apostles but this singly by it self is no argument at all of the truth of the thing because a deceiver might have aver'd the same thing and since there were sundry pretenders to this Office as well as he it was necessary there should be some other evidence of his being invested with it besides his pretending to it otherwise it would have been impossible for us to distinguish him from those that falsly pretended to it and accordingly he himself tells us Iohn 5.31 If I bear witness of my self my witness is not true i. e. If I can produce no other testimony of my being the Mediator than my own bare word you have no reason at all to believe me and therefore he tells us that he had not only Iohn's Witness to it who was his forerunner but also a much greater than Iohn's even the Witness of his Father ver 32 33. 36 37. Now there are Three ways by which the Father Testified for him all which do abundantly evince his being the true Mediator First by sundry ancient predictions of him which were all exactly accomplished in him for the Testimony of Iesus saith S. Iohn is the spirit of Prophesie Rev. 19.10 Secondly by sundry Voices from Heaven by which the Father proclaimed him his well-beloved Son. Thirdly by Miracles which by the power of God he frequently wrought in his own Person while he was upon Earth and in the persons of his followers after his ascension into Heaven To treat of all which would require a Volume by it self and therefore for the first of these ways I shall refer the English Reader to the Reverend Mr. Kidders Demonstration of the Messias wherein the Testimony of Prophesie is handled at large with very great strength and clearness of Judgment And as for the second way of Gods bearing Witness to Jesus viz. by Voices from Heaven I refer the Reader to our Learned D. Hammonds reasonableness of the Christian Religion at the end of his Practical Catechism it being my intent to insist only upon the Third and last way of Gods attesting Jesus to be the Mediator viz. by Miracles for this way our Saviour himself most insists on and appeals to So in the aforecited Ioh. 5.36 But I have a greater witness than that of John for
20.28 not that the Divine Essence can suffer or bleed but being united into one Person with the Humane Nature the Properties of this Nature and also the Actions and Passions thence proceeding may be truly attributed to it and therefore since in the Person of Christ God was united to Man whatsoever his Humanity suffered may be truly called the suffering of God and being so it was a suffering every way equivalent to the Eternal damnation of the whole world of sinners Lastly As he was to appear as our Advocate at the right hand of God it was very fit he should be Man that so as the Apostle discourses having an High Priest that was in all points tempted like as we are as having been placed in our Nature and Circumstances he might be the more affectionately touched with the feeling of our infirmities Heb. 4.15 i. e. that so our nature being a part of himself and that himself having experienced its weakness and infirmity he might be the more nearly concerned for it and be touched with a more tender compassion towards it consequently solicite its cause and interest at the right hand of God with greater zeal and importunity For so the same Author reasons Heb. 3.17 18. Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren that he might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God to make reconciliation for the sins of the People for in that himself hath suffered being tempted he is able to succour them that are tempted And that he should be God as well as Man is no less requisite to create in us the greater confidence of the success of his Advocation For what Reason or Argument could be great enough to satisfie our guilty and therefore anxious minds that ever a meer man who had nothing beyond our selves to recommend him to God but only his Innocence and Vertue should be able to obtain such a prevailing interest in Heaven as not only to reconcile the Almighty Father of all things to a world of sinful men against whom he was so justly and so highly incensed but also to obtain of him to imbrace them with infinite Love and crown them with eternal Favours which is such a stupendous success as we could scarce have modestly hoped for from the most importunate intercession not only of the best man that ever was upon earth but of the highest Angel in Heaven For unless we could reasonably suppose God to be more pleased with one innocent man or Angel than he is displeased with a world of guilty sinners which is hardly supposable we could have no just ground to hope that the cries of the ones intercessions should be more prevalent with him than the cries of the others guilts But when we consider that he who hath undertaken our cause is the Son of God the Son of his natural Generation that from all Eternity was begotten of his Essence God of God Light of Light very God of very God what may we not expect from the Prayers of one so near and dear to the Eternal Father that is fit either for him to ask or for the Eternal Father to bestow For this we may be confident of that he can never be so highly displeased with us as he is pleased with his own Son who is the stamp of his very Essence and express Character of his Person and that therefore his pleasure in him will be far more prevalent than all his displeasure against us and while it is so we have all the security in the world that he will succeed in his Advocation and prevail in our behalf Thus that Christ should be God-man was in it self highly expedient to qualifie him for all the Parts and Offices of his Mediation and accordingly the holy Scripture expresly declares him to be so For first That he is God is as plainly asserted as any Proposition in the Bible For thus not to instance in the Old Testament where he is frequently stiled Iehovah the incommunicable name of God and the Mighty or Almighty God and Immanuel that is God with us In the New Testament he is not only called God Acts 20.28 where the Pastors are exhorted to feed the Church of God which he hath purchased with his own bloud which can be applied to none but Christ and Iohn 20.28 where Thomas calls him my Lord and my God which Confession of his our Saviour himself approves Verse 29. but moreover he is called the true God 1 John 5.20 And we are in him that is true even in his Son Iesus Christ he is the true God and eternal life and God over all blessed for ever Rom. 9.5 and accordingly the Father himself is brought in thus bespeaking him Thy Throne O God is for ever and ever Heb. 1.8 where his design is to shew the excellency of Christ above the Angels for saith he in Verse 7. Of the Angels he saith who maketh his Angels Spirits and his Ministers a flame of fire but unto the Son he saith Thy Throne O God c. which stile O God here must necessarily import something greater than was ever attributed to Angels and consequently something greater than a Nominal or Titular Deity which our Adversaries in this Article allow was frequently given to the Angel of the Lord in the Old Testament If therefore that Angel of the Lord were a meer created Angel as they affirm he had as much attributed to him as our Saviour unless we suppose this stile O God to import real and essential Deity and not meerly nominal So also Iohn 1.1 In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. For the clearing of which noble Text which our Adversaries with a world of Art have indeavoured to perplex and intangle it is to be considered that this Phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Word was a term of Art by which in that very Age when this Gospel was written and long before and after it both the Iewish and Heathen Writers were wont to express and signifie a divine Person by whom the Ancient Jews understood the Messias who is that very Person the Apostle here treats of Since therefore by this Phrase the Word both Jews and Gentiles when S. Iohn wrote this Gospel understood a divine Person and since by this divine Person the Jews understood the Messias there is no reason to imagine that S. Iohn here meant it in any other signification since in so doing he could not but foresee he should impose upon the World and take an effectual course to make us believe he meant what he never intended For he is so far from explaining this Phrase into any different sence from that of the Jewish and Gentile Writers that he all along explains himself in the very same Now it is hardly to be imagined by any one whose mind is not deeply tinctured with Heretical Pravity but that had the Apostle
used this Technological Phrase in any different sence from its common acceptation he would have told us of it and not have given us such an unavoidable occasion to mistake in so great a Doctrine by clothing its sence in such Phrases as in the Language of the Age he wrote in signified so differently from what he meant and intended by them And as in the above-named Texts he is expresly stiled God so other Texts to convince us that he is not a meer titular Deity attribute sundry things to him which are peculiar to God Essential For so the making of the World is in sundry places expresly attributed to him which as the Apostle tells us Heb. 3.4 is peculiar to God For he saith he that made all things is God for so in the above-named Text we are told That by him were all things made and that without him was not any thing made which was made where by all things we must necessarily understand the whole World unless we will suppose the Apostle to equivocate because it was then a common and received Doctrine that the Word was the maker of the World. For so besides the above-cited Authorities the Chaldee Paraphrase upon Isa. 45.12 instead of I made the Earth and created man upon it saith the Lord renders it I by my word made the Earth and created man upon it and on Gen. 1.27 instead of God created man the Ierusalem Targum renders it The Word of the Lord created man and so in several other places This therefore being the Doctrine of the Age S. Iohn could not but apprehend that they would certainly understand these words of his in their own sence because in all appearance they are so to be understood if therefore he meant them in any other sence he ought immediately to have explained himself which since he hath not it is plain either that he meant according to the common sence or that he intended to equivocate but that he meant according to the common Doctrine of the Age is sufficiently evident from other Texts of Scripture For Heb. 11.3 the Apostle expresses this Article to the Jews in their own Language through Faith we understand that the Worlds were made by the Word of God now that by this Word he meant Christ is plain from Heb. 1.1 2. In these last days God spake unto us by his own Son by whom also he made the Worlds and that by these Worlds he means the whole Creation is evident from the 8 9 and 10. verses of this Chapter But unto the Son he said thy Throne O God is for ever and ever c. Thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity c. speaking still of the Son and then it follows And thou Lord in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the Earth and the Heavens are the work of thine hands for the conjunction And here plainly connects these words to the foregoing viz. But unto the Son he said c. so that still it is the same Son of whom it is said Thy Throne O God c. and thou Lord in the beginning c. the same Person whose Throne in verse 8. is said to be for ever and ever that is said in verse 10. to have laid the foundations of the earth So also Col. 1.15 16 17. Who is the Image of the invisible God the first-born of every Creature for by him were all things created that are in Heaven and that are on earth visible and invisible whether they be Thrones or Dominions or Principalities or Powers all things were created by him and for him and he is before all things and by him all things do consist where to shew that he means a proper and literal creation the Apostle describes it in those very words wherein Moses describes the creation of the World For by him were all things created that are in Heaven and that are on Earth and to shew that he doth not mean by creating renewing or regenerating as the Socinians will needs understand him he tells us that not only Men were created by him who are the only Subjects of this new Metaphorical creation but all things in general that are on Earth and not only all things that are on Earth but all things that are in Heaven too where there never was any thing new-created or regenerated for the Thrones and Dominions the Principalities and Powers i. e. Orders of Angels that are here said to be created by him have never been renewed or regenerated but those of them that fell fell for all eternity and they which stand have always stood and shall stand for ever and therefore by his creating them must be meant his giving them their being and existence And as the creation of the World is in Scripture attributed to Christ which speaks him a divine Being so there are other things ascribed to him which are peculiar to the Divinity as particularly his being Alpha and Omega the beginning and the end the first and the last in Rev. 22.13 and several other places which is a stile that God hath appropriated to himself Isa. 44.6 Thus saith the Lord the King of Israel and his Redeemer the Lord of Hosts I am the first and I am the last and besides me there is no God. If then Christ be the first and last as he himself declares he is Rev. 1.17 he must be that Lord the King and Redeemer of Israel Hitherto we have been proving that he is God but then there are other Texts that do as plainly prove him to be God-man For so in 1 Tim. 3.16 Without controversie great is the mystery of Godliness God was manifested in the flesh which is the same with that of S. Iohn John 1.18 And the Word which in the first verse he saith was God was made flesh so also Phil. 2.6 7. For being in the form of God he thought it not Robbery to be equal with God but emptied himself and took upon him the form of a servant being made in the likeness of men from which words it is plain that Christ was in the form of God before ever he was in the form of a servant for it was by taking on him the form of a Servant that he emptied himself and his being in the form of a servant consisted in being made in the likeness of men so that his being in the form of God doth as much imply that he was God as his being in the form of a servant doth that he was Man and since in becoming man he emptied himself it necessarily follows that before he became so he was full and also that that fulness of his consisted in being in the form of God if then he was full by being in the form of God before he emptied himself into the form of a servant by being made in the likeness of men it is certain that he was in the form of God before he was in the form of man and that his being in the form of God
And therefore to satisfie us in this also after he had abode some time upon Earth after his Resurrection and satisfied his Disciples by frequent converses with them that he was really risen and given them all necessary Orders for their future conduct in the propagation of his Gospel he carried them out to Bethany where after he had lift up his hands and blessed them he ascended before their eyes into Heaven upon which it is said Luke 24.52 That they worshipped him and returned to Ierusalem with great Ioy surely not because their dear Lord was gone from them never in this World to be seen by them more that was cause of sorrow rather than joy to them but because he was gone to the right hand of the Father there to intercede in Person for them and for ever to exhibite that wounded and bleeding body of his by which he had made expiation for the sins of the World and purchased the promise of the Spirit and of eternal life upon this account indeed they had great cause to rejoyce because now they knew they had a sure Friend in Heaven where their main hope and interest lay even that very Friend who not long before had freely exposed himself to a most shameful and tormenting death to rescue them from death eternal and who after such an instance of love they could not but conclude would employ his utmost interest with the Father in their behalf and in a word who being the only begotten of the Father whose precious Bloud he had graciously accepted as a ransom for the sins of the World could not but have an interest with him infinitely sufficient to obtain for them all the graces and favours that were fit either for them to ask or for his Father to bestow So that now if we heartily comply with him as Mediating for his Father with us we have all the encouragement in the world to depend on him as Mediating for us with his Father since he doth not Mediate with him by a second hand or at a distance but in his own Person in that very Person which is not only infinitely dear to the Father as being his only begotten Son but hath also infinitely merited of him by offering him his own life at his command as a Sacrifice for the sins of the World. And accordingly upon this consideration the Apostle founds the hope of Christians 1 Iohn 2.1 2. My little Children these things write I unto you that ye sin not but if any man sin let him not presently give up himself as hopeless and irrecoverable for we have an Advocate with the Father Iesus Christ the Righteous and he is the Propitiation for our sins VI. And lastly Another thing which the Scripture proposes to our belief concerning this Mediator is that upon his return from us to Heaven there to Mediate Personally for Men with God he substituted the divine and Omnipresent Spirit Personally to promote and effectuate his Mediation for God with Men. When he went up to Heaven there to Mediate for us with God he did not thereby abandon his Mediation for God with us but immediately substituted a certain mighty spiritual Being to act for him whom he calls the Advocate or as we render it the Comforter and the Holy Ghost and who was to Mediate with Men in his behalf even as he Mediated with them in the behalf of his Father and to Advocate for his Authority as he Advocated for his Father's For so he tells his Ministers whom he left behind him to assert and propagate his Authority in the World I will pray the Father and he shall give you another Comforter or Advocate i. e. to plead for and inforce your Ministry in my behalf whose Ministers you are that he may abide with you for ever even the Spirit of Truth c. I will not leave you comfortless or without an Advocate I will come to you that is by this Spirit of Truth who is to be my Vicegerent even as I am my Father's Iohn 14.16 17 18. But for the fuller explication of this great and necessary Article I shall first shew what this divine Spirit is which Christ hath substituted to Mediate for God with us in his absence Secondly I shall explain his subordination and substitution to Christ in this part of his Mediation Thirdly I shall shew what it is that he hath done and still continues to do in order to the effecting this Mediation First What this divine Spirit is which Christ hath substituted to Mediate for God with us in his absence I answer it is the third Person in the Tri-une Godhead For that besides the Father and the Son there is a third divine Person subsisting in the Godhead seems to have been a current Doctrine among the ancient Writers both Gentile and Iewish and is most plainly and expresly asserted in holy Scripture which third Person is known in Scripture by the name of the Holy Ghost or the Spirit of the Lord. For that the Holy Ghost so often named in the New Testament is the same with that Spirit of the Lord so much celebrated in the Old S. Peter expresly asserts 2 Pet. 1.2 For the Prophecy came not in old time by the will of man but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost from which words it is evident that this Holy Ghost whom S. Peter here mentions is the very same with that holy Spirit or Spirit of the Lord by whom as we are told in the Old Testament the ancient Prophets were inspired vid. Isa. 63.11 2 Sam. 23.2 Mich. 2.7 and abundance of other places and accordingly S. Peter applies that Prophecy of Ioel 2.28 I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh to that miraculous descent of the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost Acts 2.16 17. but this is that saith he which was spoken by the Prophet Ioel c. which could not be true if Peter's Holy Ghost were not the same with Ioel's spirit of the Lord. But it is most certain that the Holy Ghost whom S. Peter and the New Testament so often mention was in the first place a real Person and not a meer Quality as the Socinians vainly dream For so we every where find personal properties and actions attributed to him Thus he is said to speak Acts 28.25 and Heb. 3.7 yea and his speeches are frequently recorded so Acts 10.20 The Spirit said unto Peter arise therefore get thee down and go with them for I have sent thee and Acts 13.2 The Holy Ghost said separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them and how can we without horrible force to such plain historical relations which ought to be literal and not figurative attribute these speeches to a meer Vertue or Quality And elsewhere he is said to reprove the world Iohn 16.8 and to search into and know the deep things of God 1 Cor. 2.10 11. and to divide his Gifts
which they are most endeared and familiarized into the divine and spiritual world there is no one duty whatsoever to the due performance of which our carnal affections are naturally more listless and averse and therefore as herein we have most need of the Holy Spirit 's assistance so herein he more especially operates on our minds exciting in us all those graces and affections which are proper to the several parts of our Prayer such as shame and sorrow in the confession of our sins a sense of our need of mercy and a hope of obtaining it in our supplications for pardon and forgiveness resignation to God's Will and dependance on his truth and goodness in our address for temporal mercies and deliverances hunger and thirst after Righteousness in our Petitions for his grace and assistance and in a word Gratitude and Love and Admiration of God in our praises and thanksgivings for mercy and in these divine affections the life and soul of Prayer consists And accordingly in Gal. 4.6 the Apostle tells us Because ye are Sons God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts crying Abba Father that is by kindling devout and pious affections in your Souls enabling you to cry to God with all earnestness and assurance as to a kind and merciful Father and hence also we are said to pray in or by the Holy Ghost Iude 20. because all the proper graces and affections of Prayer are excited in us by him And this his excitation of the graces of Prayer in us is called his making Intercession for us Rom. 8.26 27. which imports no more than his enabling us to offer up the matter of our Prayers to God in a most devout and affectionate manner or as he there explains himself with sighs and groans that are not to be uttered that is with such earnest and flagrant affections as are too big for words to express And this is properly to intercede for us For as Christ who is our Advocate in Heaven doth offer up our Prayers to the Father and enforce them with his own Intercessions so his Spirit who is our Advocate on Earth begets in us those affections which render our Prayers prevalent and wings them with fervour and ardency the one pleads with God for us in our own hearts by kindling such desires there as render our Prayers acceptable to him and the other pleads with him for us in Heaven by presenting those desires and soliciting their supply and acceptance Now this Intercession of the Holy Spirit is also performed as all the aforegoing operations by suggesting to and imprinting such thoughts upon our minds as are most apt to raise and excite our affections which thoughts he often urges with that vehemence and presses with that reiterated importunity that if we do not wilfully repel them from our minds and refuse them admittance to our hearts and affections they cannot fail to stir up in us all the graces of Prayer and enflame our Souls with a servent devotion and accordingly whenever we harbour these suggestions of the Spirit and by seriously attending to them cherish and encourage them we find by experience they so affect and influence our devotions as that in every Prayer our Souls take wing and like the Angel that appeared to Manoah â—ly up to Heaven in the flames of our Sacrifice And thus I have given a brief account both of what the Holy Spirit hath done and of what he still continues to do towards the promoting and effectuating of Christ's Mediation for God with men And by what hath been said it abundantly appears that he hath done for us and still continues to do all that our case and necessity requires and that there is nothing imaginable wanting on his part towards the reducing and reconciling our minds to God. So that now he may justly say to us what God doth to his Vineyard Isa. 5.4 What could I have done more for my Vineyard that I have not done Or as the Hebrew expresses it What is to be done more Not but that by his omnipotent power absolutely considered the Holy Spirit can do more for us than he ordinarily doth he can in an instant infuse a new nature into us in despite of all the resistance of our Wills and make such irresistible impressions on our minds as our most inveterate prejudice and enmity against God shall never be able to withstand but then his power always acts by the direction of his wisdom and can do no otherwise that is it can do no more than it can wisely do and it is certain that ordinarily and regularly it cannot wisely so act upon men as to determine their natural liberty to good and evil since by so doing he must not only commit a perpetual violence on the frame of our Beings and thereby reverse the established course of our natures but also destroy the very being of Vertue in us which is no longer Vertue than while it is free and unconstrained But whatsoever he can wisely do or which is all one consistently with the liberty of our nature he hath done and still continues doing So that now to the reduction of our Souls to God there is nothing wanting but our own consent and free co-operation which if we will refuse we may for for desperate obstinacy there is no remedy if we will not comply with the blessed Spirit it is certain he will not save us whether we will or no. So that when inquisition shall be made for the bloud of our Souls the utmost we can charge him with is that he did not drag us to Heaven in spite of our teeth and bind up our hands in the Cords of an irresistible Fate to hinder us from murdering our selves but if we have so little regard of our selves as to spurn at our own happiness it is by no means fit that he should force it upon us and it would be a very mean and unreasonable condescension in him to prostitute his grace to such as scorn and refuse it If therefore after all these things that the Spirit hath done for us we persist and finally perish in our enmity against God he may fairly wash his hands in innocency over us and charge our bloud upon our own heads and how deplorable soever our condition proves in the future state his Iustice will Triumph gloriously in our ruine and our own Consciences together with all the reasonable World will be forced to be his Compurgators and to pronounce him infinitely just and righteous in all his ways SECT II. Concerning the particular Offices of Christ's Mediation FOR the clearer stating what are the particular Offices of the Mediator it will be necessary briefly to enquire into the state and condition of the Parties between whom he Mediates as they stand related to one another For he being to officiate for and between God and Man to be sure his Offices must be such as their respective states and conditions do require For how can
of Christ's Ministers for the preaching that Gospel to the World which he had taught them and of the Way and Method of their procedure in it in despite of all those oppositions they met with And as for the Epistles they are partly Comments and Enlargements on our Saviour's Actions and Discourses and partly Decisions of such Controversies as arose among them according to the Analogie of that Faith which our Saviour had before declared and revealed but in all these Writings there is no one Article of Faith but what was before declared and defined in the Sermons and Discourses of our Saviour And then as for the Primitive Writers who lived in or near the Apostolical Age and upon that account had much greater advantages of understanding the truths of Christianity than we who live at this remote distance they are at best but genuine Commentators on that Doctrine which our Saviour first taught and his Apostles afterwards more fully explained to the World but as for declaring any new Doctrines or defining new Articles of Faith that is an upstart invasion of Christ's Prophetick Office which they never so much as pretended to So that the Prophecy of our Saviour is the Fountain from whence all Christian truth is derived as containing in it a compleat and entire Sum of God's Will and Counsel concerning the Salvation of Mankind II. As he taught the whole Will of God so he proved that what he taught was the Will of God by sundry miraculous operations which are the great evidences by which God always demonstrated the truth of his divine revelations and which of all others are the most popular easie and convincing proofs that can be given of them For as for the Prophets themselves they might be very well assured that their Enthusiasms were divine by the vehement impressions they made on their minds which were such as did as fully satisfie them that they were from God as the strokes of the Sun beams on our eyes do us that it is day at Noon but no other man could be satisfied that what they spoke was by divine inspiration without either being divinely inspired himself or confirmed by them in the belief of it by some miraculous sign of the Divine Power which latter was the way by which the Prophets of Old did ordinarily confirm their Doctrines when they delivered any thing new to the World. And accordingly though our Saviour had all along sufficiently confirmed his Doctrines to the Iews by the Authorities of the Old Testament yet this confirmation of his Miracles he more particularly insists on and appeals to thus Iohn 10.25 The works saith he that I do in my Father's name they testifie of me And again vers 37 38. If I do not the works of my Father believe me not but if I do though ye believe not me believe the works and herein he places the inexcusable sin of their unbelief that they persisted in it notwithstanding he had done among them the works which none other man did John 15.24 And indeed well he might considering the miraculous powers he exerted among them for how often did he even before their eyes subpoena in whatsoever was in Heaven or Earth or Sea to give their testimony to his Doctrine he made the Angels minister to him and the Devils tremble and fly before him and the Plants and Animals the Winds and Seas obeyed him and Health and Sickness and Life and Death and the Grave did by their obedience to his Word bear witness to the truth of his Doctrine By his powerful voice he shook the Heavens and sent down the Holy Spirit on his Followers he tore the Rocks and opened the Graves and at his command the bodies of his Saints arose and which was more miraculous than all he raised himself the third day after his Crucifixion and having finished his Course upon Earth ascended Triumphantly into Heaven in the view of a numerous assembly of Spectators All which were such illustrious demonstrations of his being inspired by God as nothing but an incurable infidelity could ever be able to withstand But whâ—t proper arguments these Miracles of his weâ—e to convince men and what evidence there is oâ— the truth and reality of them will be shewn at lâ—rge hereafter and therefore it will be needlâ—ss at present to insist any farther on this particular III. Therefore as a Prophet he gave us a perfect Example of Obedience to that which he had declared and proved to be his Father 's Will. He did not only reveal his Father's Will to mens Ear 's in his excellent Sermons and Discourses but he also set it forth before their Eyes in the glorious Example of his Actions For what he taught in Words he exemplified in Deeds and his Conversation was a lively Picture of his Doctrine wherein all that Humility and Self-denial that Temperance and Iustice that Charity and Heavenly-mindedness thâ—t invincible Constancy of Mind and generous Contempt of the World which he taught Mankind were drawn to the life and expressed in their fairest colours and proportions So that what he taught in Words he taught over again in Actions and explained his Rules still by his own Example for his Conversation was all along a most genuine Comment and Paraphrase on his Religion by casting their eyes on which those who did not fully understand the sence of his Precepts by his Words might very easily expound it by his Actions For there is no doubt but a good Example doth far more effectually instruct than good Precepts because it doth not only express the same vertues that the Precepts enjoyn but also expresses them with much more grace and Emphasis For whereas Precepts and Discourses of Vertue are only the dead Pictures and artificial Landskips and Descriptions of it a vertuous Example is Vertue it self informed and animated alive and in motion exerting and exhibiting it self in all its natural Charms and Graces And therefore as we know a man much better when we see himself alive and in action than when we only see his Picture so we understand Vertue much better when we see it living and acting in a good Example than when we only behold it described and pictured in vertuous Precepts and Discourse So that by giving us a compleat and perfect Example of Piety and Vertue the blessed Jesus hath far more effectually instructed us in our duty than by all those heavenly Sermons which he preached to the World because his whole life was nothing else but a continued series of living and moving Vertue or rather it was nothing but Piety and Vertue acting their several parts in their own proper Forms and exhibiting themselves to the Eyes of men in all their natural Graces And as the Holiness of his life did most effectually instruct men in their duty so it could not but very much confirm them in the truth of his Doctrine for it is certain if his Doctrine were false it was not a simple Error but a downright
bloud of Abel will like the Souls under the Altar raise a cry of vengeance on us as high as the Tribunal of God. Wherefore as we would not find this blessed Sacrifice which was designed for our City of refuge converted into an avenger of bloud let us diligently concur with it to our utmost â—ower in this nâ—cessary design of our reformation that so being washed white and clean in the bloud of it we may appear before God holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight And thus I have given an account of the first Act of Christ's Priesthood viz. his Sacrifice SECT V. Of Christ's Intercession or presenting his Sacrifice to God in Heaven by way of Advocation for us I NOW proceed to the second Act of our Saviour's Priesthood corresponding to that ancient Priesthood in which it was typified and prefigured viz. his presenting his Sacrifice to God in Heaven thereby to move God as our Advocate to be merciful and propitious to us In discoursing of which I shall endeavour First To explain the nature of that Advocation which he performs by presenting his sacrificed body in Heaven Secondly To shew the admirable tendency of this Method of God's communicating his graces and favours to us through the Intercession and Advocation of our Saviour to reduce and reform Mankind As for the First viz. the Nature of this our Saviour's Advocation for us in Heaven it may be thus defined It is a solemn address of our blessed Saviour to God the Father in our behalf wherein by presenting to him his own Sacrificed body and by continuing and perpetuating the presentation of it he doth effectually move and solicite him graciously to receive and accept our Prayer and to impower him to bestow on us all those graces and favours which in consideration of his Sacrifice God hath promised to us For the better understanding of which Definition I shall distinctly explain the several parts of it which are these four First It is a solemn address of our blessed Saviour to God the Father in our behalf Secondly This Address is performed by the presenting his Sacrificed body to the Father in Heaven Thirdly It is continued and perpetuated by the perpetual Oblation or presenting of this his sacrificed body Fourthly In vertue of this perpetual Oblation he doth always successfully move and solicite God and this First To receive and graciously accept our sincere and hearty Prayers and Secondly To impower him to bestow on us all those graces and favours which in consideration of his Sacrifice God hath promised to us I. This Advocation of Christ in Heaven is a solemn address to the Father in our behalf And this is implied in the very word Advocation for the proper business of an Advocate is to address in the behalf of his Client to the Party with whom he is concerned or to plead the Cause of his Client with some Person with whom he hath some difference or from whom he expects some favour Now S. Iohn tells us that we have an Advocate with the Father Iesus Christ the righteous 1 John 2.1 which must therefore necessarily imply his addressing to the Father in our behalf in order to the composing that difference which sin hath made between him and us and to the obtaining for us his mercy and favour For in this sence the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we here render Advocate is generally used among all Authors vide Outram de Sacrif p. 360. And so also the word Intercession signifies to address for one person to another in order to the reconciling some matter of difference between them or to the obtaining from the one some favour for the other And therefore since Jesus Christ is said to intercede for us at the right hand of God Rom. 8.34 this Intercession also must necessarily imply his making application to God in our behalf For so the Phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we render to intercede for signifies to advocate or plead the cause of another as on the contrary 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth always signifie to accuse Rom. 11.2 1 Maccab. 8.32 and 1 Maccab. 10.61 and 1 Mac. 11.25 And consequently when our Saviour is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it must necessarily denote his addressing himself to God as our Advocate to plead our cause and solicite our interest and accordingly Heb. 9.24 we are told that Christ is entered into Heaven it self now to appear in the presence of God for us which phrase cannot without infinite force be otherwise understood than of his appearing for us as our Advocate to God. By all which it appears that in this his intercession for us our Saviour addresses to God the Father from whose bountiful hands he procures and receives all those blessings and favours which he derives to us So that the Father is the Fountain whence all our blessings flow and the Son is the Channel that receives them thence and conveys them down to us For as he is Mediator the Son can bestow nothing on us in his own right independently from the Father whose Minister he is and by whose Commission and Authority he acts And since they are all his Father's goods which he bestows upon us he cannot justly bestow them without his leave and consent the obtaining of which is the great business of his Intercession whereby he continually moves and solicites the Father to grant to him those good things in our behalf which as the high Almoner of the Father's graces and favours he bestows upon us So that whatsoever he gives to us he receives of the Father and whatsoever he receives of the Father he procures by his intercession with and address to him in our behalf II. This address is performed by the presenting his sacrificed body to the Father in Heaven For thus as was shewed before the High Priest's address to God for the People consisted in presenting the bloud of the sacrifice to him in sprinkling it upon and before the Mercy-Seat which was the Throne of the divine Majesty For he made no vocal Prayer for them in the Holy of Holies and consequently he performed not his intercession by words but by actions and the principal action he performed there was sprinkling the bloud of the Sacrifice which action was a very significant Intercession importing this Sense O God I beseech thee accept this bloud which I offer thee for the lives of thy People which are forfeited to thee And accordingly our blessed Saviour after he had offered up himself a Sacrifice for our sins upon Earth ascends into Heaven the true Antitype of the Holy of Holies and there presents not his bloud but his sacrificed body to the Father that body which not long before bled and died on the Cross and which as it seems probable carried with it all the wounds it received in its Crucifixion for by the story of Thomas it is certain it retained them after its Resurrection And by thus presenting his
sacrificed body to the Father he did what the High Priest did when he sprinkled the bloud of his Sacrifice i. e. he interceded for us with God and indeed he interceded more prevalently by this significant action than if he had used all the Eloquence of Men and Angels For his wounds are vocal and his bloud speaks yea and not only speaks better things for us than the bloud of Abel spoke but also expresses what it speaks far more powerfully and emphatically than it is possible for any verbal Oratory to do So that by the presenting to his Father his wounded and bleeding body which carries with it an inexhaustible fountain of Rhetorique and Persuasion he makes the most moving and pathetical intercession for us the sense of which is this though the full force and Emphasis of it no Language can express O my Father behold this sacrificed body of mine which by thy consent and approbation hath been substituted to bear the punishment which was due to thee from Mankind and through the wounds of which I have chearfully poured out the precious bloud of God as a ransom for the sins of the World for the sake of this bloud therefore be thou so far propitious to those miserable sinners it was shed for as upon condition they shall repent to accept it in exchange for the lives of their Souls which are forfeited to thee to release them from the Obligation they are under to die eternally and upon their final perseverance in well-doing to crown them with eternal life and that this bloud which at thy command I have willingly shed for them may not through their inability to repent and persevere be utterly ineffectual to them O send thy Holy Spirit to assist their weak faculties to excite their endeavours and co-operate with them This is the Language of Christ's sacrificed body in Heaven and these are the better things which his bloud bespeaks for us For his bloud bespeaks those good things for us in Heaven for which he shed it upon Earth i. e. the remission of our sins and our eternal life of which blessings his bloud being the price that God had promised to accept his presenting it to him in Heaven not only speaks for but humbly demands them as carrying with it the unanswerable claim of an accepted Price to a stated Purchace So that this address which Christ makes for us to God in heaven is not performed by him after the manner of a prostrate Supplicant with bended knees up-lifted hands and lowly supplications but in such a manner as comports with the Kingly Majesty he is advanced to and so as at the same time to assert his own right of purchace in the blessings he addresses for and yet to acknowledge God to be the supreme fountain and disposer of them And this the Scripture tells us he performs by appearing in the presence of God for us and presenting his sacrificed body to him as a standing motive to prevail with him to be propitious to us and to crown us with all those graces and favours in consideration of which he laid down his life for us And accordingly he is said to offer himself to God for us in heaven Heb. 9.25 and to offer his one Sacrifice i. e. to God in heaven for sin for ever Heb. 10.12 By which offering or presenting his Sacrifice to God he doth at once claim for us by the right of his purchace all those good things for which he paid down the price of his bloud and also by a silent desire pray to God to bestow them upon us whereby he acknowledges him to be the sovereign disposer of them So that this significant action of Christ's presenting his sacrificed body to God is both a Claim and a Prayer or rather it is a Prayer backt and enforced with a rightful claim to the blessings he prays for For so for that particular blessing of the Spirit he himself tells us I will pray the Father and he shall give you another Comforter that he may abide with you for ever John 14.16 not that he offers up any other Prayer to the Father but what his wounds and bloud continually make which with incessant importunity do move and solicite God in our behalf but his meaning is this by presenting that Sacrifice to my Father in Heaven which I am going to offer on the Cross and by which among other blessings I shall purchace of my Father his Holy Spirit for you I will pray him to send his Holy Spirit to you I will pray him by my wounds and bloud which are a thousand times more moving and eloquent than any vocal Prayer I can offer in your behalf for while they pray him to send his Spirit to you they lay an undeniable claim to what they pray for as being the dear and inestimable price by which I am purchasing his Spirit for you From all which it is evident that this address which Christ now makes for us to his Father in Heaven consists in the presenting his sacrificed body to him by which he both prays to him and claims what he prays for III. It is by the continued and perpetual oblation or presentment of this his sacrificed body to the Father that Christ continues and perpetuates this his address or intercession in our behalf For the fiâ—st presenting or oâ—lation of his sacrificed body in Heaven was the beginning and commencement of his intercession and the whole progress of his intercession is nothing but that same oblation continued and perpetuated For as the High Priest was interceding for the people all the time that he was presenting the bloud of the Sacrifice before the Lord so Christ is interceding for us all the while that he is presenting his sacrificed body in Heaven For it is by the presence of his sacrificed body that he intercedes and therefore so long as his body is present in Heaven so long he must be interceding by it in our behalf So that between the Iewish High Priest's Intercession and Christ's there is this vast difference that the former presented himself in the Holy of Holies with his Sacrifice and consequently interceded by it but once a year viz. on the great day of Expiation whereas the latter continually presents his Sacrifice in Heaven and so doth continually intercede by it and whereas the bloud which the High Priest presented was so mean and inconsiderable that the whole vertue of it was still spent in one Act of Intercession as not being available enough for him to intercede with it twice insomuch that in every new act of Intercession he was still fain to present new bloud the bloud of Christ was of that infinite moment and value as that though he makes a continued and perpetuated Intercession by it yet the vertue and efficacy the power and prevalency of it with God remains fresh and unimpaired so that he needs not sacrifice again that so he may have new bloud to present but with that
bestows upon us he bestows by the hand of Jesus Christ whom upon his first Oblation of his precious Sacrifice in heaven and continual intercession with it he constituted and continues the Royal distributer of all his graces and favours to the World. And therefore since there is no doubt but that that which he obtains by his intercession is the thing which he intercedes for it necessarily follows that the thing which he intercedes for is power to bestow on us the blessings of the New Covenant because he hath actually obtained that power by his Intercession Having thus given as plain and as brief an account as I could of this second Priestly Act of our Saviour viz. his Intercession for us in Heaven by the continual Oblation of his Sacrifice there I proceed in the second place to shew the admirable tendency of this method of God's communicating his Graces and Favours to us through the intercession of our Saviour to reduce and reform Mankind which will plainly appear by considering the following particulars First This method naturally tends to excite in us a mighty aw and reverence of God's Majesty Secondly It also tends to give us the strongest conviction of God's hatred and abhorrence of our sins Thirdly It also tends most effectually to secure us from presuming upon God's mercy while we continue in our sins Fourthly It tends to encourage us to draw near to God with Chearfulness and freedom Fifthly It tends to give us the most ample assurance of his gracious intentions towards us if we repent and return to our duty I. This method of God's communicating his Favours to us through our Saviour's intercession is naturally apt to excite in us a mighty aw and reverence of the divine Majesty For in this degenerate condition wherein our Nature is inverted and turned upside down and our sensitive faculties have got the ascendant of our Reason rational Objects have incomparably less force on and prevalence with us than material and sensitive And hence it is that we are so unapt to be affected with the Majesty of God though in it self infinite and incomprehensible because it being purely spiritual is objected only to our Faith and Reason and doth not strike upon our sense with the Rays of a visible glory And hence it was that under the Old Testament God so frequently exhibited himself to mens eyes in sensible appearances as particularly sometimes in a humane shape and sometimes in a body of light or of shining flame that so by making an impression of his great Majesty on their sense he might affect them with a sutable aw and dread of it And for the same reason that he conversed with them in these sensible appearances he also treated with them by a Mediator on Mount Sinai for God commanded that bounds should be set round about the Mountain which the People were forbid upon peril of death to break through unto the Lord to gaze and only Moses their Mediator together with his Brother Aaron were permitted to ascend the Mount and to have immediate access to him and by thus keeping them at a distence from his sacred presence and only suffering them to approach him by their Mediator he took an effectual course to inspire their minds with a reverential aw of his divine Majesty which is in it self so infinitely sacred and August that it seems it would have been an high Prophanation in them to have conversed with it immediately And accordingly God by keeping us at a distance from him and allowing us to have access to him only by our Mediator expresses the greatness of his Majesty which is too sacred to be mingled in conversation with us too sublime to admit of the immediate addresses of poor Mortals yea and which no Mortal must approach without the Mediation of his own Eternal Son for thus Plato in his Sympos gives it as an instance of the Majesty of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. God doth not mingle himself with men but all the converse and intercourse between him and us is transacted by the Mediation of Demons And if it were thought so great an instance of God's Majesty that he would not be approached by us without the Mediation of Angels to what an infinite height must he be exalted above us when no less a person than he who is God-man can so much as give us access to him or present our Prayers and Supplications at his feet O! what an awful sense therefore of the Majesty of God should this consideration beget in our minds For how can we think of him without dread and reverence when we consider how he is secluded by the infinite sacredness of his own Majesty from all immediate converse and intercourse with us and how he is exalted so infinitely above us as that we cannot have access to him so much as by our Prayers and Supplications without the interposition of a Mediator who is greater than the greatest of all the Kings on Earth or Angels in Heaven Surely he who can thus think of God without being struck into a profound aw and reverence of his Majesty must have a mind so hardened against all the impressions of Reason as that no wise thought can ever move or affect it II. This method of God's communicating his favours to us through our Saviour's Intercession tends also to give us the strongest conviction of God's hatred and abhorrence of our sins For doubtless to convince us how deeply he resents our sinful behaviour towards him the most effectual course he could take next to that of banishing us from his presence for ever was to exclude us from all immediate intercourse with him and not to admit of any more addresses or supplications from us but by the hand of some Mediator Hereby he plainly demonstrates how infinitely pure and abhorrent to sin his nature is that he will not suffer a sinful Creature to come near him but by Proxy nor accept of a service from a guilty hand nor listen to a Prayer from a sinful mouth till it is first hallowed and presented to him by a pure and holy Mediator If therefore we are not infinitely conceited of our selves this procedure of his cannot but lay us low in our own eyes and make us deeply sensible of our own vileness and baseness For how infinitely detestable must our sins be in his eyes when notwithstanding all his kindness and benevolence towards us he keeps us at such a distance from him and will not be prevailed with without some powerful intercession so much as to hear our Prayers or to have any kind of communication or intercourse with us And accordingly you find that when the three Friends of Iob had treated him so despitefully and uncharitably God to manifest his displeasure against them commands them to make use of Iob's Mediation Iob 42.7 My wrath saith he to Elephas is kindled against thee and against thy two Friends for ye have not spoken of me the thing that
God himself can give us of his mercy and our happiness hath any force in it to oblige us to repent and amend this our Saviour's Intercession you see fairly proposes to us so that if this proposal doth not effectually influence our hope and thereby excite and animate our endeavours it is impossible that any encouragement should ever move or affect us And thus you see in all these several particulars how effectually this way of God's communicating his Favours to us through the Intercession of our Saviour tends to our reformation and amendment what a fruitful Topick of motives it is to induce us to repentance and how pathetically it addresses to every affection in us that is capable of persuasion what awful and reverential thoughts of Almighty God it suggests to our minds to dispose our stubborn Wills to an humble submission to him what a horrible representation it makes of our sins and of God's wrath and indignation against them and what a dreadful alarm it gives to our fear to rouse and awake us out of our sinful security And in a word how powerfully it encourages us to draw near unto God and to make our addresses to him with an humble and generous freedom and what vast assurances it gives to our hope of his gracious intentions towards us if we repent and amend All which considered one would think it were impossible for any man that believes and understands this wonderful method of mercy not to be moved and affected by it and certainly that man who hath obstinacy enough to withstand all its persuasions and finally to defeat and baffle those powerful attempts which it makes to reclaim him is a Creature not to be moved by Reason and Argument For in this he hath conquered the greatest motives of all sorts that can be urged to persuade men and when once he is got beyond the reach of persuasion and no motive of ingenuity or hope or fear can affect him his condition is desperate and his obstinacy incurable Wherefore as we would not finally disappoint this wonderful contrivance of God to reclaim us and thereby render our selves for ever desperate let us at length be persuaded seriously to consider the Motives and Arguments it proposes to us and never to cease urging and pressing them upon our own souls till they have conquered our obstinate Wills and prejudiced Affections and finally captivated us into a free compliance with their powerful persuasions For if through our wilful neglect and inconsideration this mighty project of mercy prove utterly unsuccessful with us it is certain we have sinned our selves past all hope of recovery and it will be in vain to make any farther experiment on us And when we have once baffled this last and most powerful remedy of the divine Goodness what remains but that it should give us up and utterly abandon us to the just desert and dire effects of our own folly and obstinacy SECT VI. Of the Kingly Office of our Saviour WHen I first entred upon this Argument of the particular Offices of our Mediator I proposed to handle them in the same order that he performed and executed them and accordingly as he began with his Prophetick Office of which his whole life was a continued Ministry so I have treated of this Office in the first place and as from his Prophetick he proceeded to his Priestly Office one part of which he executed on the Cross where he offered himself a Sacrifice for the sins of the World and the other upon his Ascension into Heaven where he presented and still continues to present his Sacrifice to the Father by way of intercession for us so I proceeded in the next place to treat of his Priesthood in both the parts of it and now in the last place in pursuit of the same order I proceed to his Regal or Kingly Office which was the last he entered upon after he had finished his Prophecy offered his Sacrifice and presented it to his Father in Heaven For so in Scripture the Regality of Christ is always spoken of as successive to both his Prophetick and Priestly Office and as the fruit and reward of his faithful discharge and execution of them So Phil. 2.8 9 10. it was because he humbled himself and became obedient to death even the death of the Cross that God highly exalted him and gave him a name which is above every name that at the name of Iesus every knee should bow of things in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth And Rom. 14.9 the Apostle tells us that it was for this end that Christ both died and rose and revived that he might be Lord both of the dead and living and accordingly the Angels in St. Iohn's Vision attribute his advancement to his Regal dignity to the merit of his Death and Sacrifice Rev. 5.12 Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive Power and Riches and Wisdom and Strength and Honour and Glory and Blessing And hence his sitting at the right hand of God which is the great Scripture-Metaphor by which his Regal Authority is expressed of the sense and meaning of which Pearson's Exposition of the Creed p. 277 278 279. is mentioned as the fruit and consequence of his Death and Intercession So Heb. 1.3 When he had by himself purged our sins i. e. by dying for us on Earth and presenting his Sacrifice in Heaven he sate down on the right hand of the Majesty on high and Heb. 10.12 But this man after he had offered one Sacrifice for sins for ever sate down on the right hand of God and so also 1 Pet. 3.22 we are told that it was upon his going into Heaven i. e. to present his Sacrifice to his Father there that he was advanced to the right hand of God and that Angels and Authorities and Powers were made subject to him For his going into Heaven was a Priestly Act corresponding to the Priest's going into the Holy of Holies to present his Sacrifice to God there so that Christ's first arrival into Heaven and presenting his Sacrifice there is the beginning and commencement of his Intercession in answer to which he first received of his Father that Royal Power and Authority which he exercises both in Heaven and Earth and it is by vertue of the continuance of that his Priestly Intercession that this his Royal power is continued and perpetuated to him So that as he is a Royal Priest i. e. a Priest invested with Regal power to bestow the blessings he intercedes for so he is a Sacerdotal King i. e. a King that holds his Regal power in the right and virtue of his Priestly Intercession For it is by the continuance of his Intercession that he obttains the continuance of his Royal Authority to bestow those blessings on us which he intercedes for So that as Christ intercedes in the vertue of his Sacrifice so he rules in the vertue of his Intercession And accordingly you find in
he actually forgave sins Matth. 9.2 compared with the sixth where he doth not only pronounce to one that was sick of the Palsie Son thy sins are forgiven thee but declares that he did it by that power and authority which he had upon earth to forgive sins All which being acts of Regal power do sufficiently manifest that even whilst he was upon Earth he was vested with Royal Authority and that by assuming our nature he did not divest himself of his ancient Royalty but still continued King of the Iews so long as they continued a Church Sixthly That though the main body of the People of Israel rejected Christ and were thereupon rejected by him yet there was a Remnant of them that received and acknowledged him for their rightful Lord and King. For so as S. Paul observes it is foretold of Isaiah concerning Israel Though the number of the Children of Israel be as the sand of the Sea a remnant shall be saved Rom. 9.27 and accordingly it proved in the event For though the much greater part of the Jewish Nation obstinately persisted in their Infidelity and Rebellion against the blessed Iesus their King notwithstanding all those powerful Arts and Methods he had used to reclaim and save them yet there was a great number of them that willingly received and loyally adhered to him For not only the Disciples which he gathered whilst he was upon Earth but also the first Converts after his Ascension into Heaven were generally of the Iewish Nation within which not only his own Personal Ministry was confined but also the Ministry of his Apostles for some time after his Ascension For so S. Paul and Barnabas tell the Jews that it was necessary the Word of God should first have been spoken to them Acts 13.46 But this Proposition is so manifest from the whole Gospel that I shall not need to insist any farther upon it Seventhly Therefore that this Remnant still continued the same individual Church or Kingdom of Christ with the former though very much reformed and improved For it still remained upon the same basis with the former as having the self-same Covenant for its Charter which is the form that Identifies all Societies and notwithstanding the perpetual change and renovation of their parts still continues them the same individual Politick bodies Since therefore that remnant of Israel who believed in Christ continued still in the same Covenant with that whereupon the old Jewish Church was founded it necessarily follows that they were not a new or distinct Church but still remained the same individual sacred society with the old So that they were the unbelieving Jews that revolted from their old Church by rejecting the Mediator of that Covenant by which it was formed and constituted but as for the believing Jews who imbraced and acknowledged him they still continued in it and so remained the same continued Church as being still united and incorporated by the same Charter But though it was the same continued body with the old Jewish Church yet was it very much reformed and improved by our blessed Saviour For in the first plâ—ce whereas before it was extremely corrupted through the many false glosses and superstitious traditions of their Elders and like an unâ—â—est Garden was all overgrown with Thorns and Weeds its Religion being almost dwindled away into Ceremonies and outward observances and evaporated into a dead shew and formality our blessed Saviour repaired its ruines and decays removed its rubbish and reformed its disorders and restored it to its primitive beauty and purity For the great design of all his Sermons and Parables was to explain the Laws of it into their Genuine sence and to rescue them from the false Glosses and Comments of the Scribes and Pharisees to reprehend and expose its hypocrisie and formality and to refine its Religion from all those corrupt and heterogeneous mixtures with which it was dasht and sophisticated That Remnant of the Jews therefore who believed in Christ and submitted to his Doctrine when all the rest of them finally rejected him were the same individual continued body with the Old Jewish Church as purified and reformed from its errors and corruptions For by submitting to our Saviour's regulations they did not commence into a new Church but still continued the same body only with this difference that whereas before it was distempered with sundry corrupt humours now it was throughly purged and recovered And as our Saviour restored that Church to its ancient purity so secondly he advanced and improved it to a far more perfect state than it was in even under its primitive Constitution It is true as for the Religion of that Church it was for substance the same with that which our Saviour and his Apostles taught it proposed to them the same Covenant and the same Mediator and the very same Doctrines and Articles concerning this Mediator to create in them the same belief and oblige them to the same practice only with this difference that whereas it proposed him to their belief as hereafter to be incarnate and sacrificed to rise and to ascend into heaven it proposes him to ours as actually incarnate and sacrificed and as actually risen and ascended but this is only a circumstantial difference since that as to all the purposes of his Mediation his future Incarnation and Sacrifice c. had the same vertue and influence with his actual But though as to the main the ancient Iewish Religion was the same with ours yet in respect of clearness and easiness and amplitude there is a vast difference between them For first as to clearness it is evident that it was much more darkly and obscurely revealed to the ancient Iews than it is to us for to them it was revealed only either in general Promises out of which they were fain to argue and deduce particulars or in temporal Promises that carried a mystical sence with them and obscurely implied the spiritual blessings which the Gospel proposes or in dark Types and material Figures and Emblems which were Prophetick Pictures or as the Apostle calls them shadows of good things to come For thus in that general Promise In thy Seed shall all the Nations of the Earth be blessed was included Christ and all those particular blessings which we receive by and through him under those temporal promises of deliverance from their enemies and peaceâ—ble possession of Canaan was couched their deliverance from sin and hell and their eternal rest and happiness in heaven and under their legal Sacrifices the all-sufficient Sacrifice of the blessed Mediator was exhibited and represented to them and in a word under the High Priest's offering the bloud of the Sacrifice in the Holy of Holies was intimated the Mediator's intercession for them in heaven Thus both the Promises and Types of the Iewish Religion were all of them obscure revelations of Christianity which is nothing but Mystical Judaism or Judaism explained into its spiritual sence and meaning And accordingly
by an Angel requiring him to send to Ioppa for St. Peter to instruct him in the Christian Religion in Acts 10.3 4 5. But since that Christ hath revealed his whole Will to his Church and transmitted it down by a standing Scripture this Ministration of the holy Angels is in a great measure ceased and to this written Word of his we are intirely referred as to the perpetual Rule of our Faith and Manners insomuch that if thenceforth even an Angel from heaven should preach any other Gospel to us than what we have there received he is pronounced accursed Gal. 1.8 Not but that sometimes and upon great Emergencies they may be still sent from heaven with new Messages to us to discover some useful secret or to inspire our minds with the notices of some future contingencies that are of great moment to us though this very rarely it being no part of their ordinary Ministry But since the Revelation of the Gospel was compleated to be sure they never reveal any new Doctrine to us they may be assisting Geniuses to our understandings to excite in them a true apprehension of what is already revealed by impressing our imaginations with clear and distinct Idea's and Representations of things that are revealed more obscurely But to suppose that they still reveal new Doctrinal truths to us is not only to deny the perfection of written Revelation but to open a wide door to all manner of Enthusiasm II. Another instance of the Ministry of Angels in the Kingdom of Christ is their guarding and defending his Subjects against outward dangers for thus the Angels are said to encamp round about those that fear God to deliver them Psal. 34.7 And though I see not sufficient reason to be fully persuaded that every faithful Subject of the Kingdom of Christ hath an appropriate Guardian Angel appointed to him yet from that Caution of our Saviour Matt. 18.10 it is evident that he imploys his Angels to attend as an invisible Lifeguard upon the persons of all good Christians for saith he Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones for I say unto you that in heaven their Angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven i. e. those blessed spirits which are appointed by God to be their Guardians upon Earth have yet their continual returns and recourse to God's glorious Presence in Heaven and having always access to him to offer up requests or complaints in their behalf it must needs be a very dangerous thing for any to presume to despise or offend them lest he thereby provoke those mighty spirits to sue out and execute some Commission of vengeance upon him From whence it is evident that the blessed Angels are greatly concerned in the vindication and protection of the faithful and that that promise Psal. 91.10 11 12. is still in force viz. There shall no evil befal thee for he shall give his Angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy ways they shall bear thee up in their hands left thou dash thy foot against a stone And this they do sometimes by removing such evil accidents from us as in the course of necessary causes must have befaln us for there is no doubt but these powerful Spirits have a mighty influence upon necessary causes at least upon a great many of them and can retard or precipitate or vary or divert their motions as they see occasion and thereby prevent a great many accidents which must otherwise have befaln had they permitted them to proceed in their natural courses Other times again they divert the mischievous intentions of our Enemies by injecting sudden fears into them and brandishing horrid Phantâ—sms before their imaginations as the Angel did the flaming Sword before Balaam when they are just upon executing their Malice Sometimes again they warn us of dangers approaching either by some external sign or unaccountable impression on our fancies by which we are vehemently solicited without any visible Cause or Reason either to proceed very cautiously in the ways where our danger lies or to stop and forbear a while or steer some other course Of all which there are innumerable instances to be found in History III. Another instance of the Ministry of Angels in the Kingdom of Christ is their supporting and comforting his faithful Subjects upon difficult undertakings and under great and pressing Calamities for thus not only our Saviour himself was comforted in his last Agony by an Angel from Heaven Luk. 22.43 but St. Paul also tells us that being in imminent danger of being shipwreck'd in a storm in his voyage to Rome there stood by him in the night an Angel of God whose he was and whom he served saying fear not Paul thou must be brought before Caesar and lo God hath given thee all them that sail with thee Acts 27.23 24. So also when the Apostles by an Order from the High Priest were cast into the common Prison the Text tells us That an Angel of the Lord by night opened the Prison doors and brought them forth and said go stand and speak in the Temple to the People all the words of this life Acts 5.19 20. So also in the ancient Martyrologies of the Church we meet with sundry relations of the appearances of Angels to the suffering Martyrs and of the wonderful Comforts they administred to them to support their Faith and Patience under their Agonies and Torments And although since the Cessation of Miracles they do not Ordinarily perform this Ministry to us in visible appearances yet there is no doubt but as they are Spirits they have spiritual and invisible ways of conversing with our Spirits and of administring Comforts to us in our needs and extremities for though they can have no immediate access to our mind which is a dark Mysterious Chamber into which no other Eye can penetrate but his who is the searcher of all hearts yet that they can vehemently impress our Fancies with joyous Representations and thereby exhilarate our drooping spirits to that degree as to transport us into Raptures of bodily passion is not to be doubted there being so many sensible experiments of it in the ancient Prophets whose imaginations were sometimes so vehemently impressed with frightful Idea's by the Angels which conversed with them as that they immediately fell into an Agony and were seized with unaccountable horrors and tremblings and not only the Prophets themselves that saw the Angel were thus affected but sometimes their Companions too that saw him not of which you have an instance in Dan. 10.7 where Daniel tells us that he alone saw the vision of the Angel and that the men that were with him saw not the Vision but a great quaking fell upon them so that they fled to hide themselves which is a plain evidence of the great power which the Angels have over our bodily passions even when they are invisible to us so as to strike what note soever they please upon
So that here are plainly two sorts of Ecclesiastical Officers the one superiour to the other of our Saviours own Institution and appointment and therefore if his institution be still valid there must still be a superiority and subordination between the Officers and Ministers of his Church and consequently the Government thereof must still be Episcopal i. e. by some superiour Officers presiding and superintending over other inferiour ones I know it is objected that this superiority of the Apostles over the seventy was only in Office but not in Power or Iurisdiction but since it is the Office that is the immediate Subject of the Power belonging to it I would fain know whether superiority of Office must not necessarily include superiority in Power for Office without Power is an empty name that signifies nothing and every degree of superiority of Office must be accompanied with Power to exert it self in Acts of superiority otherwise 't will be utterly in vain and to no purpose So that either the superiority of the Apostolick Office over other Church-Offices must be void and insignificant or it must have a proportionable superiority of power over 'em inseparably inherent in it But it is farther objected that supposing the Apostolate to be superiour to the other Ecclesiastical Orders in Power and Office yet it was but temporary it being instituted by our Saviour in subservience to the present exigence and necessity of things without any intention of deriving it down to the Church in a continued Succession To which I answer in short that this is said without so much as a plausible colour of reason for they allow both that our Saviour instituted this Office and that in his institution he never gave the least intimation to the World that he intended it only for a certain season Now if men will presume to declare Christs Institutions Temporary without producing the least intimation of his Will that he so designed 'em they may with the same warrant repeal all the Institutions of Christianity and even the two Sacraments will lie as much at their mercy as the Institution of the Apostolick Order which unless they can prove it repealed by the same authority which established it will be sufficient to prescribe to all Ages and Nations for the obligations of divine Commands are dissolvable only by divine countermands and for men to declare any divine Institution void before God hath so declared it is to over-rule the Will of God by their own arrogant Presumptions for though the matter of the Institution be mutable in it self yet the form and obligation of it is mutable only by the authority which made it and therefore though God hath not declared that he instituted it for perpetuity yet till he declares the contrary it must bind for perpetuity especially if the reason of the institution of it be not apparently altered which cannot be pretended in the case under debate there being the very same reasons for a superiority and subordination between Ecclesiastick Officers now as there was when our Saviour first appointed and instituted it Until therefore they can shew either that the reason of the institution is ceast or that the institution it self is repeal'd by some other Law neither of which was ever yet pretended they may as reasonably dispence with most of the precepts of the Gospel which are no more declared perpetual than this as with this of superiority and subjection among the Ecclesiastical Orders which is the proper form of the Episcopal Government II. That the true Government of the Church is Episcopal is evident also from the Practice of the holy Apostles who pursuant to the institution of our Saviour did not only exercise that superiority in their own persons which their Office gave 'em over their inferiour Clergy but also derived it down with their Office to their Successors which is a plain argument that they looked upon our Saviours institution of this superiour Office of the Apostolate not as a temporary expedient but as a standing form of Ecclesiastical Government to be handed down to all succeeding Generations for though during our Saviours abode upon Earth and sometime after his ascension into Heaven the number of the Apostles was confined to twelve yet when afterwards thro their Ministry the Church was spread and dilated not only through Iudea but into the Gentile Nations they added to their number several other Apostles to whom they communicated the same Office and Degree of superiority over the other Clergy that our blessed Saviour had communicated to them for so Eusebius lib. 1. cap. 11. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. besides the twelve there were many other Apostles in that Age after the similitude of the twelve and of the truth of this I shall give three or four instances The first is that of S. Iames of Ierusalem the Brother of Iesus who though he was none of the Twelve for in that number there were but two Iameses viz. the Son of Alpheus and the Son of Zebedee neither of which was he whom S. Paul calls the Lords Brother and S. Paul reckons him apart from the Twelve 1 Cor. 15.5 6.7 is yet stiled an Apostle by S. Paul Gal. 1.19 but other Apostles saw I none save James the Lords Brother And S. Ierom in his Comment on Isaiah stiles Iames the thirteenth Apostle that is the first that was made an Apostle after the Twelve and that he was not merely a nominal Apostle but actually endowed with Apostolical Power and Superiority is evident both from Scripture and the unanimous consent of Ecclesiastical History from Scripture it is evident that this Iames was a man of great preheminence in the Church of Ierusalem for in the first Council that was held there we find him giving a discisive Sentence in the matter of Circumcision Acts 15. for after there had been much disputing ver 7. and S. Peter and S. Paul and S. Barnabas had declared their Judgment in the case ver 7.13 S. Iames after a short Preface thus delivers himself Wherefore my Sentence is that we trouble not them which from among the Gentiles are turned unto God and this Sentence of his determines the Controversie and puts a final end to all farther debate which plainly argues his great authority and preheminence in that place Again Acts 21.17 18. we are told that when S. Paul and his company were come to Ierusalem the Brethren received him gladly and that the next day following Paul went in with them unto James and all the Elders were present Now for what other reason should Paul go in to Iames more especially or upon what other account should all the Elders be present with Iames but that he was a person of the greatest note and figure in the Church of Ierusalem and for the same reason in all probability S. Paul mentions Iames before Peter and Iohn discoursing of a meeting he had with them at Ierusalem Gal. 2.9 because though Peter and Iohn were two
find in Scripture that all Ecclesiastick Commissions were either given by the hands of some of those first Apostles who received their Commission immediately from our Saviour or else by some of those secondary Apostles that were admitted into Apostolick Orders by them which secondary Apostles as was shewn before were the same with those whom we now call Bishops for so in Acts 6.3.6 the seven first Deacons we read of were Ordained by the Apostles the whole number of the Disciples being present but the Apostles only appointing and laying their hands on them and in Acts 14.23 we are told that Paul and Barnabas two of the Apostles ordained Elders in every Church that is of Lystra Iconium and Antioch and though these two were Ordained Apostles of the Gentiles by certain Prophets and Teachers in the Church of Antioch Acts 13.1.3 yet there is no doubt but those Prophets and Teachers where such as had received the Apostolick Character being ordained by the Apostles Bishops of the Churches of Syria for otherwise how could they have derived it For so Iudas and Silas are called Prophets Acts 15.32 and yet ver 22. they are said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is Rulers among the Brethren or Bishops of Iudea and afterwards we find that Ordination was confined to such as had been admitted to the Apostolate for so the power of laying on of hands in the Church of Ephesus was committed by S. Paul to Timothy whom he himself by the laying on of hands had ordained the Apostle or Bishop of that Church 1 Tim. 5.22 1 Tim. 1.6 so also the power of Ordaining in the Church of Crete was by S. Paul committed to Titus whom he had also Ordained the Apostle or Bishop of that Church Tit. 1.5 for this cause left I thee in Crete to ordain Elders in every City Thus all through the whole Scripture History we find the power of Ordination administred by such and none but such as were of the Apostolick Order viz. either by the Prime Apostles or by the secondary Apostles or Bishops And if we consult the Primitive Antiquities which to be sure in matters of fact at least are the best Interpreters of Scripture we shall always find the power of giving Orders confined and limited to Bishops which is so undeniable that S. Ierom himself who endeavours his utmost to equalize Presbyters with Bishops is yet fain to do it with an excepta Ordinatione Ep. ad Evagr. Quid facit excepta Ordinatione Episcopus quod Presbyter non faciat What can the Bishop do except Ordaining that the Presbyter may not do also III. Another peculiar Ministry of the Bishops and Governours of the Church is to execute that spiritual Iurisdiction which Christ hath established in it i. e. to Cite such as are accused of scandalous offences before their Tribunals to inspect and examine the Accusation and upon sufficient evidence of the truth of it to admonish the offender of his fault and in case he obstinately persist in it to exclude him from the Communion of the Church and from all the Benefits of Christianity till such time as he gives sufficient evidence of his Repentance and amendment and then to receive him in again For that Christ hath established such a jurisdiction in his Church is evident from that passage Mat. 18.16 17 18. Moreover if thy Brother shall trespass against thee go tell him his fault between him and thee alone if he shall hear thee thou hast gain'd thy Brother but if he will not hear thee then take with thee one or two more that in the mouth of two or three Witnesses every word may be established i. e. that thou mayst be able in case he doth not then amend to produce sufficient testimony of his guilt before the Churches Tribunal to which thou art next to apply thy self and if he shall neglect to hear them i. e. to promise amendment upon their admonition take them along with thee and tell it to the Church that so she may examine the matter and upon thy proving his guilt by sufficient witness may Authoritatively admonish him to amend but if he neglect to hear the Church let him be unto thee as an Heathen man and a Publican i. e. give him over for a desperate sinner as one that is to be ejected from the Communion of the Church and no longer to enjoy the common benefits of a Christian for verily I say unto you that it is to you of the Church before whom this obstinate Offender is cited and accused for now he speaks no longer in the singular number Whatsoever ye shall bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven and whatsoever ye shall loose on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven i. e. whomsoever ye shall for just cause eject from the Communion of the Church into the state of a Heathen man and a Publican I will certainly exclude out of Heaven unless he reconcile himself to you by Confession and promise of amendment and if thereupon you pardon him and receive him into the Churches Communion I will most certainly pardon him too if he perform his promise for that by binding and loosing upon Earth our Saviour means excluding out of the Church and receiving in again is evident from that Parallel passage Mat. 16.19 I will give unto thee the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven and whatsoever thou shalt bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven and whatsoever thou shalt loose on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven where by the Keys of the kingdom of Heaven is plainly meant the Authority of a Steward to govern his Church or Family for so Isa. 22.21 22. God promises Eliachim that he would cloath him with the Robe of Shebna who was over the Houshold ver 15. i. e. Steward of the Kings Family and that he would commit Shebna 's Government into his hand c. and then it follows And the Key of the House of David will I lay upon his shoulders so he shall open and none shall shut and he shall shut and none shall open that is in short I will make him the Governour of the Family and give him power to admit or exclude what Servants he pleases and accordingly by the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven must be meant the Government of the Church for so Keys denote Authority to Govern vid. Rev. 3.7 and by binding and loosing the power of shutting out of or readmitting into it and therefore in Iohn 20.23 this binding and loosing is thus expressed whose sins ye remit or loose shall be remitted or loosed whose sins ye retain or keep bound shall be retained or kept bound for though the words are different from those in S. Matthew yet they are of the same import and signification and consequently our Saviours meaning must be the same here as there viz. whose sins you loose from the penalty of exclusion from the Church I also will loose from the penalty of exclusion out of Heaven and whose sins
of sin is in Scripture frequently attributed to the Father as well as to the Son So 1 Iohn 1.9 If we confess our sins he i. e. the Father is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness and Eph. 4.32 Forgiving one another even as God for Christs sake hath forgiven you From whence it is plain that forgiveness of sin appertains to God as well as Christ and that both have their appropriate shares in it and therefore since it is impossible that the same individual action should proceed from two distinct Agents in this Act of forgiveness the Father must do something which the Son doth not and the Son must do something which the Father doth not They must both of them act an appropriate part in it and each have a distinct agency from each other For the fuller explication therefore of this Article I shall endeavour to shew first what it is which the Father doth in forgiving sins and secondly what the Son doth I. What is it that the Father doth in this Act of forgiveness of sin To which in short I answer That the Fathers part herein is to make a general grant of pardon to offenders upon such a consideration as he shall think meet to accept and with such a limitation and restriction he shall think fit to make which general Grant is nothing else but those glad tidings of the Gospel which he proclaimed to the World by Jesus Christ viz. that in consideration of Christs Death and Sacrifice he would freely forgive all penitent and believing sinners their personal obligation to eternal punishment and receive them into grace and favour So that in forgiving our sins there are these three things peculiar to God the Father First His making a general Grant of Pardon to us Secondly His making it in consideration of Christs Death and Sacrifice Thirdly His making it with those restrictions and limitations of Faith and Repentance First One thing peculiar to God the Father in forgiving sins is his making a general Grant of pardon and forgiveness to sinners For the Law against which all men had sinned and by which they were obliged to eternal punishment was strictly and properly the Law of God the Father who being the first and supreme person in the Godhead was consequently always the first and supreme in the divine Dominion Now the divine Dominion consisting even as all other Dominions do of a Legislative and executive power the Father must be supreme in both and consequently the Laws of the divine Dominion must be more especially and peculiarly his And hence it is called The Will of the Father Mat. 7.21 so in the Lords Prayer the Divine Law is in a peculiar manner stiled the Will of God the Father Thy Will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven Matth. 12.50 our Saviour stiles it the Will of his Father which is in Heaven and elsewhere the Commandment of his Father vid. Ioh. 12.5 Mat. 15.3.6 Mar. 7.8 9. by all which it is evident that the Divine Law against which we have all offended and by which we are obliged to punishment is appropriately and peculiarly the Will and Commandment of God the Father and it being so the right of exacting or remitting the punishment of this Law must be peculiarly and appropriately inherent in him For the penalty of the Law is due to him whose Law it is and it is he alone can loose us from it who bound it upon us so that it was the Fathers peculiar as to give the Law so to indemnifie offenders from the Penalty of it and accordingly we find that publick Grant of pardon which through Jesus Christ is made to sinners is in Scripture every were attributed to the Father so we are told that it is God who for Christs sake hath forgiven us Eph. 4.32 and that it is God who hath set forth Christ to be a Propitiation though faith in his bloud to declare his Righteousness for the remission of sins that are past that he might be just and the justifier of them that believe in Iesus Rom. 2.25 26. that it was God who was in Christ reconciling the world to himself not imputing their trespasses unto them 2 Cor. 5.19 And in a word that it is God who is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness 1 John 1.9 where his being faithful and just plainly refers to some publick Grant and Promise by which he hath obliged himself to penitent offenders And indeed the whole new Covenant in which this publick Grant of remission of sins is contained vid. Heb. 8.12 is the act and deed of God the Father It was he that in consideration of Christs Death and Sacrifice granted this grand Charter of mercy to the World for seeing it was to the Father that that Sacrifice was offered in consideration of which the new Covenant was granted vid. Eph. 4.2 compared with Col. 1.20 the grant of it must necessarily be from the Father And as it was the Father that made this publick grant of Remission to sinners so II. It was he that made it in consideration of Christs Death and Sacrifice for so Christ himself tells us that it was by commandment which he received from his Father that he laid down his life Iohn 10.17 18. and when he was going to offer up himself upon the Cross he tells his Disciples As the Father gave me Commandment even so do I arise let us go hence i. e. to execute that Command which the Father hath given me to lay down my life for the sheep Ioh. 10.15 from whence it is evident that it was the Father who exacted the Death and Sacrifice of Christ in consideration of that publick Grant of forgiveness which he made to the World for it was through his blood that we have redemption the forgiveness of sins according to the Riches of his i. e. the Fathers grace Eph. 1.7 and that blood of his was an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour Eph. 5.2 So that it was God the Father that did both exact and accept the sacrifice of Christ which as I have shewed at large Sect. 4. was in consideration of his pardoning and forgiving Sinners III. And lastly It was God the Father also that made this Grant of forgiveness to us with these restrictions and limitations of our believing and repenting For as the promises of the Covenant were his in which remission of sin is proposed to us so must the conditions of it be also by which it is limited and restrained Because it can belong to none but the giver to limit and conditionate his own Gifts and Grants Now the Conditions of our forgiveness are faith and repentance oâ—â—ather the condition of it is such a Faith such a lively and active belief in Jesus Christ as doth beget in us sincere repentance and renovation of life for so S. Paul tells us again
and general account of it in Scripture where we are only told that they shall awake to everlasting shame and contempt Dan. 12.2 and that they shall come forth to the Resurrection of Damnation John 5.28 and that upon their Resurrection they shall be judged according to their works and cast into the Lake of fire Rev. 20.13.15 from whence it is apparent that they shall be raised for no other end but to be punished to endure that vengeance which shall then be rendered to them even the vengeance of eternal fire for that will be their doom Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels Since therefore their Resurrection will be only in order to their being fetched from Prison to Iudgment and sent from Iudgment to Execution to be sure their bodies will be raised in full capacity to suffer the fearful execution of their doom that is with an exquisite sense to feel and an invincible strength to sustain the torment of eternal fire For since they must suffer for ever they must be raised both passive and immortal with a sense as quick as lightening to perceive their misery and yet as durable as Anvil to undergo the stroaks of it which to all eternity will be repeated upon them without any pause or intermission Thus shall they be raised with a most vivacious and everlasting sense of pain that so they may ever feel the pangs of death without ever dying so St. Cyril Catech. illum 4. p. 26. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. wicked men shall be cloathed with eternal bodies that in them they may suffer the eternal punishment of their sins and so they shall have strength to suffer as long as vengeance hath will to inflict and therefore since it is the will of divine vengeance that they should suffer eternal fire the divine power will furnish them with such bodies as shall be able to endure everlasting scorching in that fire without being ever consumed by it for at their Resurrection their wretched Ghosts shall be fetched out of those invisible Prisons wherein they are now reserved in chains against the Judgment of the great Day to suffer in that body wherein they sinned and that therein they may be capable of lingring out an eternity of torment they shall be reunited to it in such a fatal and indissoluble bond as neither Death nor Hell shall ever be able to unloose And this is all the account we have from Scripture concerning the change that shall be made by the Resurrection in the bodies of wicked men viz. that from weak and corruptible bodies they shall be changed into vigorous and incorruptible ones and be endued with a quick and everlasting sense of all that everlasting punishment which they are raised to endure Thus having given an account at large of this second Regal Act which our blessed Saviour is yet to perform viz. Raising the dead I proceed to the III. And last viz. his judging the World. In treating of which great and fundamental Article of our Faith I shall endeavour First To prove the truth of the thing that our blessed Saviour shall judge the World. Secondly To give an account of the signs and forerunners of his coming to judge it Thirdly To shew the manner of his coming Fourthly To explain the whole process of his judgment I. I shall endeavour to prove the truth of the thing viz. that our Saviour shall judge the World than which there is no one Proposition more frequently and plainly asserted in holy Scripture Thus Acts 17.31 we are told that God hath appointed a day in which he will judge the World in righteousness by the man whom he hath ordained and that this man is Jesus Christ we are assured Acts 10.42 And he commanded us to preach unto the People and to testifie that it is he which was ordained of God to be the Iudge of quick and dead So also 2 Tim. 4.1 I charge thee before God and the Lord Iesus Christ who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his Kingdom And accordingly we are told that we shall all stand before the Iudgment seat of Christ Rom. 14.10 And all appear before the Iudgment seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad 2 Cor. 5.10 And to the same purpose our Saviour himself tells us that the Father judgeth no man that is immediately but hath given all judgment to his Son and afterward he gives the reason of it because he is the Son of man Iohn 5.22.27 that is because he dutifully complied with his Fathers Will in chearfully condescending to cloath himself in Humane Nature and therein to offer up himself a willing Victim for the sins of the World for so Rev. 5.9.12 Worthy is he alone to receive the Book of judgment and to open the Seals thereof because he was slain and hath redeemed us to God by his blood worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive the power and honour the glory and blessing appendent to his high Office of judging the World. From all which it abundantly appears that this great action of judging the World is to be performed by Christ. I proceed therefore to the Second general Head I proposed to treat of which was to give an account of the signs and forerunners of his coming to judgment For before he actually appears he will give the secure World a fearful warning of his coming by hanging out to its publick view a great many horrible signs and spectacles for thus the Prophet Ioel Ioel 1.30 31. I will shew wonders in the Heavens and in the Earth blood and fire and pillars of smoke the Sun shall be turned into darkness and the Moon into blood before the great and terrible day of the Lord which Prophesie of his is particularly exemplified by our Saviour Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the Sun be darkened and the Moon shall not give her light and the Stars of Heaven shall fall and the Powers of the Heavens shall be shaken and then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven Matt. 24 29 30. and more particularly Luke 21.11.25 Great Earthquakes shall be in divers places and Famines and Pestilences and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from Heaven and there shall be signs in the Sun and in the Moon and in the Stars and upon the Earth distress of Nations with great perplexity the Sea and the Waves roaring and then it follows then shall they see the Son of man coming It is true this Prophesie of our Saviour immediately respects the destruction of Ierusalem and was in part accomplished in it several of these very signs being a little before the Calamity of that City actually exhibited to the publick view of the World as both Iosephus and Tacitus assure us and several others of them were exhibited immediately after
smallest threds and fibres of their hearts laid open and exposed to the view of men and Angels their own shame and the intolerable rack of their consciences will force them to confess their Charge and proclaim themselves guilty before all that vast Congregation of Spirits But O the inexpressible horror and confusion these wretched Souls will then be seized with when they shall see themselves thus publickly unmasked and turned inside outwards and be forced to stand forth like so many loathsom spectacles before God and his Angels without any excuse or retreat for their shame without any vail to hide their infamy and blushes when their filthy practices shall be no longer confined to the talk of a Town or a Village but be proclaimed in the hearing of all the rational World O now it would be happy for them if as formerly they could drown the retorts of their conscience in noise and laughter and forget its cutting repartees which were always uneasie to bear but impossible to Answer But alas those jolly days are gone and now in despite of themselves they must listen with horrour and confusion of face to what those two great Judges Iesus and their own Consciences unanimously give in charge against them Thus he whose piercing Eye doth now penetrate their hearts and ransack every corner of their souls will in that great day of discoveries bring forth all that secret filth that is there reposited and expose it for an infamous spectacle to the publick view of men and Angels IV. Another particular implied in this judgement of wicked men is their Sentence Their Trial being now over in which their guilt hath been sufficiently evinced and detected to their everlasting infamy and reproach they will by this time have received the sentence of death within themselves and stand condemned in the judgment of all the World the Righteous Iudg who is too great to be overawed too just to be bribed and too much provoked to be intreated whose Ears are now for ever stopped and whose Bowels are impenitrably hardened against all further Overtures of mercy will with a stern look and terrible voice pronounce that dreadful doom upon them Go ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his angels which though it be of a horrible import will appear so just considering the horrible things which have been charged and proved against them that it will be immediately seconded with the unanimous suffrage of all that bright Corona of glorified Saints that sit as Assessors round the Throne who with one consent will all cry out together Iust and righteous art thou O Iudge of the World in all thy ways But O the fearful shrieks and lamentations that will then be heard from those poor condemned Creatures For if A Lord have mercy upon thee A take him Iailor from an earthly Iudge be able to extort so many sighs and tears from a hardened Malefactor what will A go ye cursed do from the mouth of the Righteous Iudge of the World and when so many millions of men and women shall be all involved together in the same doom and all at once lamenting their dismal fate Lord what a horrible outcry will they make Now in the bitter Agonies of their souls they will cry to heaven for mercy mercy but alas poor souls they cry too late their Iudg was once as importunate with them to have mercy upon themselves but because when he called they refused when he stretched forth his hands they regarded not now when they call he will not answer when they cry he will not hear but will laugh at their calamity as they did at his counsel and mock when their fear and destruction is come upon them V. And lastly Another particular implied in this Iudgment of the wicked is the execution of their Sentence For immediately after their sentence is past by which they stand doomed to everlasting fire an everlasting fire shall be kindled round about them a fire which within a few moments shall spread it self over all this lower World and convert the whole Almosphere about us into a furnace of inquenchable flames For then all those fiery particles which are every where intermingled with these terrestial Bodies and have hitherto been kept within their proper limits shall be disintangled and set free from those more gross and sluggish ones that now bind and fix them and swarm together like so many sparks into one huge globe of Fire which from the lower-most centre of the Earth shall spire up and kindle upon all that Airy Heaven above and with one continued flame fill all the vast expansum all that fiery matter which is now dispersed up and down within the entrails of the Earth shall by degrees gather together into Rivers of Fire which rolling to and fro within to force their way into the open Air will perhaps produce those prodigious Earthquakes of which our Saviour speaks by which at length the Earth being cleft and torn it shall every where vomit out Torrents of Fire from its flaming bowels and at the same time the Sea shall boil and swell and roar like water in a seething Pot till 't is all evaporated by the strugling flames from below which having rarified its waters into vapours shall kindle those vapours into flames and at the same time also the Heavens above shall groan and crack with incessant Thunder accompanied with thick and fearful flashes of Lightning which joyning with those vast streams of Fire that will be continually issuing out of the Earth and Sea will make such a prodigious deluge of flames as will quickly overflow the whole World. For thus we are assured from Scripture that the Element shall melt with fervent heat and the earth and the works that are therein shall be burnt up 2 Pet. 3.10 So also St. Iohn in his Vision of the day of Judgment Rev. 20.11 I saw a great white Throne and him that sate on it from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away and there was found no place for them not that the matter of them shall be annihilated but the form of them shall be destroyed by their being converted into an everlasting Fire and in this Fire shall those condemned wretches live and suffer to eternal Ages Hence it is called the vengeance of eternal fire and we are told that it will be in flaming fire that the Lord Jesus will render vengeance to all that know not God and obey not his Gospel 2 Thess. 1.8 And that this flaming fire shall be the conflagration of the World that of St. Peter seems plainly to imply 2 Pet. 3.7 But the heavens and the earth which are now are kept in store reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men and being reserved unto fire against the day of perdition of ungodly men we may justly conclude that the fire it is reserved to will be the Perdition of ungodly men Thus upon our Saviours pronouncing
bound and tremble as miserable Captives under our hands Others of them appeal to the Consciences of the Heathens themselves who had been Spectators of their miraculous Victories over these infernal Spirits So Minutius Faelix All these things are very well known to a great many of your selves that your Gods are forced by us to confess themselves Devils when by the torment of our words and by the fire of our Prayers they are chased out of human Bodies even Saturn and Serapis and Jupiter and the greatest of those Gods you worship being overcome with sorrow are forced to acknowledge what they are and tho it be to their shame especially when you are present yet they dare not lye but being adjured by the true and only God they quake and tremble in the bodies they possess and either leap out immediately or vanish by degrees Others of them offer to make the experiment even before the Tribunals of the Heathen and to answer for the success with their own lives So Tertullian in his Apologetick Let any man that is apparently acted by one of your Gods be brought before your own Tribunals and if that supposed God being commanded by any Christian to speak doth not confess himself to be a Devil as not daring to lye to a Christian take that malepert Christian and pour out his blood immediately Yea how often saith he a little after only upon our touch of and breathing upon possessed persons are these Gods you adore forced to depart out of their Bodies with grief and reluctancy you your selves being present and blushing at it And these things as Origen tells us cont Cels. lib. 7. were ordinarily performed even by the meanest Christians which is a plain Argument that it was done merely by the power of Jesus without any Conjuration or Magical Art. And can we imagine that the Devil without any constraint from some superior power would ever have quitted that Tyranny he had so long exercised over the bodies and consciences of men who had thitherto adored and worshiped him or that he would ever have confessed himself to be a Devil to those men who sought the ruin of his Kingdom and made use of his Confessions to that purpose had he not been forced to it by the Authority of the Father of Spirits Is it likely he would have exerted his power to the ruin of his own interest and the amendment of those Souls he had insnared and captivated as he must necessarily have done should he have impowered the Witnesses of our Saviours Resurrection to confirm their Testimony by Miracles And since they all along declared they did them in the name and by the power of Iesus to be sure if it had not been so the God of truth would never have impowered them to impose such a cheat upon the World. These Miracles of theirs therefore were plain signs and tokens of the truth of what they did attest viz. that Jesus was risen from the dead and that not only as they were so many divine seals by which God himself did confirm their Testimony whose goodness and veracity could never have permitted him to set the seal of his miraculous power to a lye But besides this the Apostles Miracles were so many plain demonstrations that Jesus was risen and alive since they did them all in his name and by his power For how is it possible that Jesus could have impowered them to do Miracles had he been still among the dead and in a state of inactivity A dead man can do nothing himself much less can he impower others to do Miracles So that by those miraculous Works which the Apostles did by the power of Christ they did in effect thus bespeak the World Look here O incredulous World if nothing else will persuade you that our Lord is risen and alive behold the vital operations which he exerts in us his Disciples tho of our selves we are as impotent as you yet no sooner do we invoke our great Masters Name and implore his Aid but we are presently enabled to perform mighty things beyond the power of any mortal Agent without any other Charm but his powerful Name we raise the Dead bind the Devils restore the Blind recover the Lame and cure all manner of Diseases and is not this as plain a token of his being alive as if he were now standing before you in our room and doing all these things in his own Person If he were dead still he could not act in us as you see him do and therefore if nothing else will convince ye that he is alive again behold these mighty powers which he exerts in us and be at length persuaded by these sensible tokens of his activity which we produce before your eyes that he is risen from the dead For it is worth observing that this gift of Miracles was never so plentifully communicated to the Apostles as after Christs Ascension into Heaven for before he ascended he commanded them to tarry at Ierusalem till they had received the Gift of the Holy Ghost or which is the same thing the Gift of Miracles Acts 1.4 5. and this gift as he himself tells them vers 8. was to enable them to bear Testimony to him unto all the World for he being now ascended into Heaven they could no longer produce his person to convince unbelievers of the truth of his Resurrection and therefore to supply this defect Christ gave them the gift of Miracles that that might be instead of his bodily presence a plain and sensible token of his being restored to life again And indeed this was as certain a sign of it as if he had continued upon Earth and openly conversed among men in the view of the World for the most crrtain sign of life is action and by what hath been said it is apparent that Christ did not more visibly act in his own Person when he was upon Earth than he did in the persons of his Apostles after he ascended into Heaven These miraculous Operations therefore which they performed by the Power of Jesus were all of them so many plain and sensible Signs and Tokens of the truth of what they did attest viz. that Jesus was risen from the dead So that considering all these circumstances of the Apostles Testimony I dare boldly affirm that from the beginning of the World to this day there never was any matter of Fact more sufficiently and credibly testified than this of the Resurrection of our Saviour and by raising him from the dead God hath bore witness to him before all the World that he really is what he pretended to be the true Messias and only Mediator between himself and us Which brings me to the second Head I proposed to shew what an excellent convincing Argument this is of the truth of our Saviours Doctrine and Mediation and how effectually it justifies his pretence of being the true Messias and only Mediator 'T is true all the Miracles which our Saviour wrought while he
come unto God by him that is who by submitting to him as mediating for God submit to God himself seeing he ever lives to make intercession for them or to Mediate with God in their behalf The belief of which carries with it the most indispensable Obligations to Christian Piety and Vertue but while we look upon Christ as acting only for one Party whether it be for God or our selves we do in a great measure enervate the Motives of Christianity For thus while we look upon him as acting only for God that is as God's Vicegerent we must necessarily conclude that he is concerned only for God's Authority and that when he hath secured or vindicated that by reducing us to our duty or punishing our disobedience he will have no more to do with us or our concerns but even leave us to shift for our selves and to seek our reward where we can find it that he is substituted by his Father for no other end but to exact our Homage or revenge our Rebellion but that as for us he is no way concerned either to procure us any pardon for our past sin or reward for our future Obedience and while we look upon him by whom alone we have access to God as one that is utterly unconcerned for our welfare we must look upon our selves as desperate and abandoned Creatures that are utterly forsaken of all hopes and encouragements For what hope can we have when not only the Deity we are to address to is highly offended at us but also the Mediator we are to address by is utterly regardless of us And in such a hopeless condition all the arguments in the World are void and insignificant And so on the other hand while we look upon Christ as acting only for us that is as our Propitiation and Advocate we must unavoidably conclude that he is concerned only for our preservation and happiness that his Office requires no more of him but only to pay off the scores of our sins with his bloud and by pleading that payment in Heaven to obtain our actual release from the rigorous demands of divine Justice in short that he hath nothing else to do but only to purchase and sue out our pardon and to justifie and set us right in the Court of Heaven but as for reducing us under his Father's Authority and subduing our Wills and Lives to his obedience that is no part of his Mediatorship nor consequently is he at all concerned about it and if so all that his Mediation can oblige us to supposing that he hath effectually discharged it is to rest and relie upon it for our Pardon and Iustification with God and if out of pure gratitude we will be dutiful and obedient to him for the future he will kindly accept it but if not he hath no remedy against us and what likelihood is there that any argument of Religion should ever prevail with us to submit to the divine Authority so long as we presume upon Christ's Mediation for Pardon and Justification without it and believe it to be left wholly to our own Ingenuity whether we will submit or no. Thus while we consider Christ's Mediation by halves and mistake either part of it for the whole we pervert and deprave it and instead of what it is viz. a most wise and powerful inducement to Piety and Vertue render it an inevitable temptation either to Despair or Presumption both which are equally and utterly inconsistent with a holy and Christian Life But if we consider this Doctrine in its full extent as it takes in both parts of Christ's Mediation it inforces our duty upon us with the most necessary and powerful obligations For it addresses it self to every passion in us that is capable of being moved and perswaded and at once proposes to our hope and fear which are the most vigorous principles of action the most encouraging and dreadful considerations For since his Office obliges him to act for God and men together we may depend upon it that through the whole course of his Mediation he will be most just and impartial to both and that as on the one hand he will not so act for his Father's Authority as to neglect our safety and welfare so neither on the other will he so concern himself for our safety and welfare as to expose his Father's Authority and if he proceed with this exact equality between the Parties he acts for we have all the reason in the World to conclude that if we submit our selves to God we shall be graciously received and rewarded but that if we persist in our Rebellion against him we shall be most severely punished For in the first place his being concerned for us as well as for God gives us the most ample security that if we will submit to his Fathers Authority which he stands ingaged to secure or vindicate he will have a most zealous regard to us and our concerns and be as mindful of our interest as if it were his own For in undertaking to be our Advocate he assumed our Persons and took our Affairs into his own hands so that now he is another our selves and stands obliged to act for us with as much care and concern as if our Persons and Interests were his and therefore we may depend upon it that he will act as much for our advantage as we our selves could do if we were in his place and had the same power and interest with his Father that he hath and that if we were sitting in his room at the right hand of God and there interceding for our selves we could not justly wish for or desire more or greater instances of Grace and Favour than he will ask and obtain for us And what greater encouragement can we have to return to our duty than this very consideration that all our concerns with our offended God are deposited in the hands of a most faithful Mediator who upon our return will concern himself as zealously for our Good as for his Father's Authority and solicit our cause in the Court of Heaven as Industriously as we our selves could do if we were admitted to be our own Advocates But then in the second place his being concerned for his Father's Authority as well as for our Interest gives us as full assurance on the other hand that he is no less obliged by his Office to reduce us to our duty to his Father or avenge him upon us for our disobedience than he is to restore us to his grace and favour and if he should so attempt the later as to be any way deficient in the former he would not perform the part of a just Mediator which consists in acting impartially for both Parties For should he favour our interest beyond his Father's Authority he would be so far partial to us against his Father Now though he loved us so well as to sacrifice his life for us on Earth and in the vertue of that Sacrifice to appear
our Advocate in Heaven yet we can never be so fond sure as to imagine that he loves us better than his own Father and if he doth not we may build upon it that he is as zealously concerned to assert his Authority as to prosecute our interest and to provide that he be obeyed or avenged as that we be pardoned and rewarded but for us to rely upon Christ as mediating for us without submitting to him as mediating for God is in effect to hope that he will be so exceeding gracious to us as to betray his Father's trust for our sake and sacrifice his authority to our safety For should he take our part with God and solicite him to favour us while we persist in our rebellions against him he would in effect abandon the cause and interest of God's Government and endeavour all that in him lay to expose his authority to the scorn and contâ—mpt of Mankind Whilst therefore we obstinately refuse to hearken to him in his Mediation for God that is to submit to his Laws and return to our duty and allegiance he will be so far from interceding for us in the vertue of his meritorious sacrifice that he will appear against us as an incensed Judge in the quarrel of his Father's Authority and dearly revenge upon our guilty heads all those shameless affronts and indignities we have offered it and by making us everlasting Monuments of his Vengeance convince us by woful experience that he is no less a just Mediator for God than a merciful Mediator for Men. So that by resolving to persist in our rebellion against God we do in effect renounce the Mediation of our Saviour and proclaim before God and Angels that we will not be beholden to the one and only Advocate of sinners And when we have flung our selves out of this Protection Lord whither shall we go for sanctuary from thy vengeance When there is but this one Mediator and he hath discarded me O my wretched Soul whither wilt thou betake thy self Call now and see if there be any will hear thee to which of all the Saints or Angels wilt thou turn thee What Favourite of Heaven will plead thy cause when the only Advocate of Souls hath rejected thee For if he who is my only Mediator be incensed against me who shall Mediate between me and him When God alone was angry with me there was some hope because my Saviour stands as a living Screen between me and his displeasure to guard and defend me from it but when that is kindled against me too what is there to interpose between me and the devouring flame Be wise therefore O ye sinners be instructed ye obstinate Rebels against God Kiss the Son lest he be angry and ye perish from the way for if his wrath be kindled but a little blessed are all they that put their trust in him but Wo be to them that provoke him Thus the Mediation of Christ addresses to our fear as well as hope in order to the subduing us to the Will of God and presses at once upon both these great Avenues of our Souls with the most irresistible Motives III. That this his Mediation proceeds upon certain terms and stipulations between God and Men which he obtained of God for us and in his name hath published and tendered to us For when Mankind by reason of the degeneracy of humane nature were cut off from all immediate intercourse with God and this most wise and holy Method of conversing with us by a Mediator was resolved on by the Divine Council God in consideration of what our Mediator had ingaged himself to suffer for us in the fulness of time granted to him in our behalf a most gracious and merciful Covenant whereby he ingaged himself to bestow his spirit upon us to inable us to repent and return to him upon condition that we should seek it and co-operate with it to pardon all our past sins upon condition that we should unfeignedly repent of them and to crown us with eternal life upon condition we should persevere to the end in well-doing This is the substance of that gracious Covenant which God hath granted to us for the sake of our Mediator who hath accordingly assured us from God that he will give his holy Spirit unto them that ask Luke 11.13 That if we will repent and be converted our sins shall be blotted out when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord Acts 5.19 And that if we will be faithful to the death we shall receive a Crown of life Rev. 2.10 And upon this Covenant it is that our blessed Saviour proceeds in his Mediation between God and Men. For our Baptismal Vow is nothing else but only a solemn engagement of our selves to perform the condition of this Covenant upon which there results to us a conditional right to all that God hath promised in it and when by this federal solemnity of Baptism God and we have once obliged our selves to each other by mutual promises and engagements Christ's Office as Mediator between us is to solicite on both sides for mutual performance and accordingly in Mediating for God with us he requires nothing of us but what we promised to God and in mediating for us with God he claims nothing of God but what God promised to us And hence he is called The Mediator of this better Covenant Heb. 8.6 and The Mediator of the new Covenant Heb. 12.24 because he transacts between both Parties to solicite the performance of their mutual engagements For so the same Author in Heb. 9.14 15. seems to explain it How much more saith he having spoken before of the vertue of the bloud of Bulls and Goats shall the bloud of Christ who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God purge our Consciences from dead Works to serve the living God and for this cause he is the Mediator of the New Covenant that by means of death for the Redemption of transgressions c. they which are called might receive the promise of eternal Inheritance where those words and for this cause seem as well to refer to what went before as to what follows and then the sence will be this For this cause he is the Mediator of the New Covenant both that he might take care that our Consciences being purged from dead works we might serve the living God and that having redeemed us by his Death we might receive the promise of eternal Inheritance And accordingly he proceeds in his Mediation for in acting for God as his King or Vicegerent he hath enacted the conditions which this Covenant requires of us into the Laws of his Kingdom and exacts them of us under the fearful Penalty of eternal Damnation whereby he hath taken effectual care that we shall either perform these conditions or undergo a punishment as great as the guilt of our neglect and contempt of them and having thus tied them upon us by the
his continual intercession in Heaven Royal Authority to dispense that Promise to us doth by vertue of that Authority actually pardon us upon our actual repentance So that as soon as ever we perform the condition of Gods grant of pardon our Saviour who knows the inmost thoughts of our hearts and perfectly discerns our sincerity immediately pronounces our sentence of pardon and by a particular application of that general grant to us absolves us from our obligation to eternal punishment and freely receives us into Grace and Favour For though the completion and publication of our pardon is reserved for the day of judgment when we shall be absolved from all punishment i. e. not only of eternal misery but also of corporal death and temporal sufferings in the publick view and audience of the World yet it is certain that every penitent Believer in Jesus is actually pardoned by him in Heaven as soon as ever he believes and repents that is he is in foro Christi and before the Tribunal of his Royal Judgment Absolved from the obligation to suffer eternal misery which he lay under during his state of impenitence and Christ in his own mind judgment and estimation hath Judicially thus pronounced concerning him By vertue of my Fathers grant to all penitent offenders and of that Royal Authority which he hath committed to me I freely release thee from all that vast debt of everlasting punishment which thou hast too justly incurr'd by sinning against him Thus as the Father forgives us vertually by that publick grant of mercy which for Christs sake he hath made to all penitent offenders so the Son forgives us actually by that Royal Authority which the Father hath given him to make a particular application of that his general grant to us upon our actual repentance and as it is by the Fathers grant that the Son pardons us so it is by the Sons application of it that the Father pardons us and therefore we are said in or by Christ to have redemption through his blood even the forgiveness of sin Col. 1.14 i. e. to be forgiven for the sake of his blood in consideration whereof God the Father hath given him power to forgive us for so he himself tells us that all power in Heaven and Earth was given him Matth. 28.18 and there is no doubt but in all power the power of forgiving sins was included for so S. Peter tells us that through his Name i. e. by his Authority or judicial sentence Whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins Acts 10.43 And thus you see what the first Regal act is which our Saviour hath always performed and will always continue to perform viz. forgiving of sins II. Another of his Regal acts of this kind is punishing obstinate offenders For as he mediates for his Father in ruling and governing us he must be the Minister of his Fathers providence and being so whatsoever divine punishments are inflicted upon offenders are to be look'd upon as the stroaks of his hand and the Ministries of his power for he hath the Keys of Death and Hell i. e. the power of punishing both here and hereafter Rev. 1.18 and accordingly he threatens the corrupt Churches of Asia that he would remove their Candlestick and that he would fight against them with the sword of his mouth that he would come upon them as a Thief and that he would spew them out of his mouth Rev. 2.5.3.16 and Chap. 3. Vers. 16. all which is a sufficient proof that the punishment of offenders both here and hereafter is committed to him as a branch of that Royal Authority with which he is invested by the Father in the execution of which Commission he many times Chastens bad men in this life in order to their reformation and amendment for as many as I love saith he i. e. wish well to I rebuke and chasten Heb. 3.19 and many times he persecutes them with exterminating judgments thereby hanging them up in Chains as it were as publick examples of his vengeance to warn and deter the World from treading in their impious footsteps For so he threatens Iezebel and her followers I gave her space to repent of her fornications and she repented not behold I will cast her into a bed i. e. into a Bed-rid and irrevocable condition and them that commit Adultery with her into great tribulation and I will kill her Children with death and all the Church shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and heart and I will give unto every one of you according to your works Rev. 2.21 22 23. And though for wise and gracious ends he oftentimes spares bad men in this life and sometimes shines upon them a continued day of prosperity without any cloud or interruption yet he always overtakes them with the fearful storms of his vengeance in the life to come For no sooner do their souls depart from their bodies but they are immediately consigned by his warrant into the hands of evil Angels those skilful spiteful and powerful executioners of his justice under whose savage Tyranny they indure all the tortures and Agonies that the wrath and power of Devils together with their own awakened consciences and furious and unsatisfied affections are able to inflict Of which see Part 1. Ch. 3. For that the souls of bad men are transmitted into a state of wretchedness and misery immediately upon their separation from their bodies is evident from the Parable of Dives and Lazarus wherein in the first place Dives immediately after his death is said to be in great torment in Hell and this while his body lay buried in the grave Luk 16.22 23. which is a plain argument that in all that interval between death and the resurrection of the body the souls of bad men abide in a state of torment for secondly this torment of Dives's soul in hell was then when his Brethren were living upon earth and under the teaching of Moses and the Prophets ver 27. and 28 29 30 31. which shews that our Saviour supposes it to be at that very time when he delivered this Parable and consequently he supposes all bad men who were then dead and whose condition he represents by that of Dives to be then in Hell and there suffering unspeakable Agonies and Torments and if so then it 's plain that when ever impenitent souls leave their bodies they are carried by Devils into some dismal abode and there kept under a perpetual discipline of torment and in this deplorable state they remain expecting that fearful day of accounts when their condition through their reunion to their bodies and that dread bodily Torment they must then be condemned to will be rendered yet far more intolerable III. Another of those Regal Acts which our Saviour hath always and always will continue to perform is his protecting and defending his Kingdom in this World. For thus he promises his faithful Church of Philadelphia Because thou hast kept the